A Different Perspective Official Podcast

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.

Some people are trapped by the past – and that ruins their present and robs them of their future. But Jesus has a plan. It's a good plan. A plan for our welfare and not our harm. A plan for a future full of hope.
The past, some people look back at their past with a fondness, they remember their childhood with great joy but the more I chat with people the more I firm up on my belief that it's simply not the case for most people. The more I chat with people the more I come to realise that for many, many people the hold that the things of the past have over their lives is ruining their present and robbing them of their future and man that is such a tragedy. It was never meant to be like that.
As we saw yesterday on the program God wants us to have a new life, a fresh start when we put our faith in Jesus. Completely new, that's why His Word says in the second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 17:
If anyone is in Christ right there is a new creation. Behold old things have passed away and all things are new.
If you've been tuning in over this past week you'll know that my guest on the program again today is Mike Ricchini and we've been on his life's journey, a little bit, as much as we can in the short times we've had.
He was born into some really tough circumstances, foster care, adoption, the victim of some deep racial prejudices, all those things have an impact on us and so we've been chatting with him about that, if you've missed any of those interviews I'll let you know at the end of the program how you can listen to them.
But right now Mike welcome again to the program.
Mike: Thank you.
Berni: Mate, the lies that you were told when you were growing up, when you were like fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, what did they do to how you saw your future? Did you even see a future for yourself? What was that like?
Mike: I did see a future. I've always wanted to be a teacher for kids in the schools and I've always had that as my goal for life but often times going through school there were always kids that were better than me. They're always the ones that say, "Yep I've got better grades than you" or "Dude you're never going to make it that far that's why you're going to be a teacher, you'll never end up in something successful because only the teachers are the ones that suffered at school." So I often viewed myself as the stupid one, the one that's dumb because the only thing I could do is become a teacher.
Berni: So you had this dream if I can call it that, the heart to become a teacher. Did you ever think you'd realise the dream, did you ever get, did you ever think it would happen?
Mike: I did. Since I was in middle school which is grade six through eight I've always been working with my dad, my Dad's a teacher also so I've been working with him. Even through high school I started interning at my school, helping with the kids, helping any way I could with kids.
Berni: That is awesome. Isn't interesting how God takes who He's made us to be and puts a dream on our heart? I mean different people receive their dreams at different times. I never dreamt that I'd be doing what I'm doing now but there was a point in my life where God gave me very specific that dream and calling in my life and even though there had been lots and lots of times where you think it's never going to happen, it's just not, I never stopped believing, like you I never stopped believing that it would happen.
Can I encourage you, when I heard you speak the other Sunday and you'd never preached at a Church right?
Mike: No.
Berni: I was blown away by how well you communicated; you have an amazing gift of communication I have to tell you. To be able to get up the first time you preach at a Church, to be able to preach such a corker of a message is just awesome. It took me forty years just to realise my gig in life is being a communicator. I hope you realise it much earlier and you're much quicker at it than me because you have an awesome future in communicating God's love and communicating God's truth. And your background, this tough background, Hispanic kid, mum's fifteen, drug addict, all that stuff, that's woven into the fabric of who you are; it makes you who you are and it gives you an awesome gift.
Sorry I'm just, we're just chatting here, if anyone is listening that's cool, Mike and I are just having a conversation here. God bless you and I really, really encourage you don't ever lose the sight of the fact that you are an awesome communicator.
Mike: Thank you.
Berni: What's it feel like to know that you have a future? I mean it was ugly back then as a kid, what does it feel like to know that you have a future, you know have a dream, you know you have a gift and you're going to go and do it?
Mike: I think the greatest thing is knowing that it's there but with everything there's often a fear of failure and I've definitely had that fear because people have told me, "oh you're not going to succeed, you're only doing this because you're stupid" or "teachers are for stupid people". I've had that fear that I'm not going to be a good teacher. I didn't used to be good at communicating, in high school couldn't get up in front of my class and talk to them.
Berni: Yeah I did the same thing.
Mike: I had that fear and it's something that you've got to learn to get over it, you've just got to learn to trust God.
Berni: The first three or four hundred times are the hardest okay and after that it gets a lot easier. That's my gift of encouragement. You do have a fear don't you? You have a dream, you want to reach your dream and yet you look at your circumstances in the reality of your life and all the stuff that was going on that you've talked about and you think the gap between where I am now and reaching that dream is a huge one and it's a scary one.
Mike: Yeah it is.
Berni: See a lot of people – I mean you were very fortunate and blessed to have that dream early on – a lot of people have been through difficult tough times as you have been but in different circumstances, they actually don't have a dream and there's no hope for the future and there's nothing to look forward to. And I remember a time in my life when I didn't have any future to look forward to and there was no hope, that is the most shattering thing in the world. Jeremiah chapter 29 which I'm sure you're familiar with and a lot of people who are listening are familiar with:
Thus, says the Lord, only when Babylon is seventy years complete I will visit you and I will fulfil to you the promise of bringing you back to this place, for surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for your harm, to give you a future with hope.
Listen to that people, plans to give you a future with hope.
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you.
Is that not an awesome promise? This is Israel, their country has been destroyed, the Temple has been destroyed, they've been taken by the Babylonians into captivity, they're doubting that their God even has the power to deal with the Babylonians, they're saying 'what's going on here', they have no future and God in that place comes and speaks hope into their lives. You are really blessed to have had a dream from early on, there are people who haven't had that dream from early on and I just want to take you to that truth, Jeremiah chapter 29, verses 10 to 12 is what we just read. It's great having hope isn't it?
Mike: It is.
Berni: Yeah it's great being able to look forward to a future. I just want to pray right now for people who are struggling with that, people who don't have hope in their lives because it's a scary thing. Let's just take a minute now and pray.
Father
There are people today, you know exactly who they are, your hand is upon them, you are in that place with them who do not have hope for the future, who do not have a vision for the future, who do not have a dream for who you made them to be and what you made them to do.
Father I pray that as we've shared with Mike today, as we've spent some time together talking about stuff, I pray that you would speak your purposes and your plans into their lives by your Spirit.
I pray just as your Word has been read, just as we've spoken your Word over everybody who's gathered around your table right now, around your Word that you will give us a future that has welfare and not harm, to give us a future with hope, I pray that that Word into the lives of everybody listening today, every soul, every person, every man, every woman, every child, everyone who is hurting and is without hope.
I pray that you would make the reality of your certain hope through Jesus Christ the reality of their lives. I ask it in Jesus name.
Amen.
Berni: Mike it has been awesome to have you and I really thank you for making the time to come in and chat with us.
Mike: Sure.
Berni: One last word, one last thing you want to say to people.
Mike: Yes, a burden on my heart is this power of words and Matthew 12 talks about:
Out of the abundance of our heart our mouth speaks.
And it's very important to look at the words you share with people, every word that you say has power to affect people and it's clearly words that have affected my life. It's words that ruined most of my life but then it's words that healed my life as well. And just understanding Gods forgiveness, His truth and His Word that He showed me I can now show to other people and we've just got to examine our words, examine our heart and the ways that we've been hurt so we can now affect people in a positive way and build people up.
Berni: God bless you, thanks mate.