Let me ask you a question. What makes you tick? What motivates you day to day? Now, we’re all different. We look different. We sound different. You and I have different strengths and weaknesses, but underneath what people see of you on the outside, what are the principles that guide you day to day, the ideals that are important to you? Go on, what are they?

If your life is anything like mine, it’s busy. Lots of things going on. Stresses, strains, good things, bad things, difficult things, challenging things, fun things. By and large, life “out there” can be a mixed bag. So sometimes, we end up being driven by the things that are happening to us. There’s a stimulus … something that causes us to do something, and bang, we respond. Now, that is no way to live life, because we end up reacting to things rather than being proactive.

Sometimes it is inevitable. Sometimes, something really bad happens or something really good happens and we react without thinking. But is life all about bobbing around like a cork in the ocean? Being swept this and that way by this wind or this storm. I don’t think so.

Something happens, it’s a stimulus and we respond. In between the stimulus and the response, there’s a space where we can exercise our free will and there is a space where we can decide what we want to do. When we’re making those decisions sometimes under a lot of pressure, sometimes really quickly.

Principles can help us decide what things are important. For instance, someone close to us whom we love, snaps at us, bites our head off. Now, what we want to do is snap right back. But in between when they snap at us and we respond, we can decide either to snap back and escalate the argument. Or we can decide to have a more positive or healthful response. Maybe today is the day where we should let that go right past us. Maybe today is the day where we can put our arm around that person and say: “What’s eating you today?”

We can decide between a stimulus and a response how to react to something. Decisions should be driven by principles. The things that matter deep down to us. The problem is that sometimes where there should be a bunch of principles (things that guide our decision-making), there’s a vacuum. We just react.

It depends on how we feel on that day, our mood, external things. Sometimes when there’s a vacuum of principles, we just react, other times we have lousy principles, and you know something, when we have lousy principles we make lousy decisions.

We can have a principle of selfishness, a principle that says my job in life is to crawl over the next person to get to the top of the heap. Bad principles lead to bad decisions. Bad decisions have bad ramifications.

Or we can have good principles. Principles that when you look at it, you say, “Yes, that is the right thing to do. That is the sound thing to do”. We can make good decisions based on good principles. Follows doesn’t it. Are we just reacting or are we making decisions based on good principles?

Let me share a story with you. A few years ago, my wife Jackie and I lived in a nice house in one of the southern suburbs of Sydney. And the house was set in bushland, just a beautiful spot to live. One morning in autumn I got up and went outside and it was a most amazing sight. There was spider’s web, but it was an absolutely perfect spiders web. There had been a heavy dew overnight and so the spider’s web was glistening in the sun. It was just an awesome sight.

When I looked at the spiders web … now you see a spider’s web has some main threads that run top to bottom, left to right and diagonally. They all sort of cross over in the center. That’s what the web is built on. It is almost like building the foundation of the house. And the spider starts in the center and jumps from thread to thread and goes round and round and round. All of a sudden there’s a spider’s web there.

This one that I viewed that morning was absolute perfection as far as spider’s webs go. Now we’ve all seen other kinds of webs. The nasty ones. The ones where the main struts of the web are all crooked and under the eves of the house. You look at that, and it doesn’t inspire awe or take your breath away. But that morning this was one beautiful spider web.

When you think about that little itsy, bitsy spider, he or she does not get to stand back and look at the web the way that you and I might be able to. Little itsy, bitsy spider is right there against the main struts of that web going round and round and round, jumping from each main strut to the next one. Each time making a decision which way to go.

How does a spider decide which way to go? It looks where it has been. It looks where it is going. It jumps to the next, main strut. Before you know it, you have a beautiful web. It’s a great picture. Life can be like that. Day to day we have pressures. Sometimes we feel like we’re living in the heat of battle and we have decisions to make. If we don’t have any struts well we are all over the place, what sort of web would that look like? You’ve heard that saying, “All over the place like a mad woman’s breakfast”.

Some people live their lives like that. If we do not have these main struts in place at all, we are going to make lousy decisions. If we are like the ugly spider web that was built under the eves of the house or the main doorway, whose main struts are not symmetrical, not strong, not built the way they should have been built, it is not going to be a very pretty web at all is it? As people stand back and look at our lives they are not going to see a pretty life at all.

But if we have some main struts in place, some principles, some things on which we build our lives. The things that when we’re in the heat of the battle that help us to make the right choices and decisions. Day after day, week after week, as months slip by, as years slip by, people will stand back and look at our lives and say: ” That is beautiful, that is awesome. That is a life that has touched me.”

We have to make decisions, we have to make choices quickly and sometimes in difficult circumstances. You may have seen one of those old war movies, where the soldiers of the times of old, when they were in battle, there was a banner carried in the middle of the battle. When they were under pressure, afraid, injured and hurting, they would rally around this banner.

We need the same thing in our lives. We need struts and principles that underpin who we are, to helps us make decisions and choices that have good consequences and not bad consequences. Now someone may say: “Bernie, aren’t you just being a bit old-fashioned. I mean talking about principles and talking about. C’mon life is not like that anymore, you know we just go with the flow, we do what we do”. But if we just go with the flow and do what we feel like doing on that day, then we are going to make some really bad choices. Those choices are going to hurt us.

I remember a man I’ve know for many, many years who is now on his third marriage. His first marriage went wrong because he made the wrong decisions. He was unfaithful to his wife and spent all his time at work, he was a flirt around the office. And well, the marriage fell apart. His second marriage he did exactly the same thing. He spent hours on the computer at night, he did not spend time with his wife. Well surprise, surprise that marriage fell apart too.

You make decisions everyday as I do. What are the principles that underpin the decisions you make. Just the little ones, how you spend our time? Who do we spend it with? What are those principles, do you have some? Are you able to write them down?

Over this week and the rest of next week we’re going to look at some of the principles you might find helpful in making decisions that will be good decisions for the rest of your life.

We’ve all heard that saying, “Love makes the world go round”. There’s probably been more songs written about love in the last fifty years or so than any other subject. Love. It’s pretty important in the scheme of things. But how much does love influence the way we behave? In the day to day, when we make decision of how we speak to someone; how we spend our time; how we spend our money. How much impact does love have on those decisions? Now that is an interesting question.

This week we’re having a look at the principles that underpin the way in which we live. If you were with us yesterday you heard me talk about the spider’s web. I once saw a spiders web that was just so beautiful, so perfect, glistening in the morning sun with the dew on it. I realized the reason that this spider’s web was so perfect was because the main struts, the ones that run from top to bottom, left to right and diagonally and cross over at the center, those very foundations of the web, were so perfectly aligned so the spider was able to weave a beautiful web that went going round and round and round on these struts.

Our lives are a bit like that. The principles that underpin the decisions that we make everyday, well if they are good principles then we can make good decisions. If the struts are crooked, skewed, and weak and we’re not sure what they are, my hunch is that in the heat of the battle, day to day, we are going to make some bad decisions. Bad decisions have bad consequences in our lives.

Some people believe they shouldn’t have any principles. “I’ll just do what feels good on the day”. And those lives will be all over the place … just like a ‘mad-woman’s breakfast.’

What should the principles be that guide our decisions, our behaviour day to day? If there was one principle you had to name and had to say “this is the most important thing in my life”, what would that be? It’s interesting, someone asked Jesus that question once. Listen to what He said.

One of the teachers of the Law of Moses came up while Jesus and the Sadducees were arguing. When he heard that Jesus had given a good answer he said to Him: “What’s the most important commandment?” And Jesus answered: “The most important one says, ‘People of Israel you have only one God. You must love Him with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength’. The second most important commandment says love others more than ourselves. No other commandment is more important than these.”

Isn’t that interesting? The most important thing for Jesus in life is love. What is love? What does it look like? What does it smell like? Well, Hollywood would like us to believe that love is a feeling, love is romance, flowers, chocolates, and romantic dinners. Well, that’s one part of love.

But what if love is more than a feeling. What if love is a choice? A decision. A principle to live by. Well, if that’s the case, love becomes one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful force of change in the world today. What if we decide that the most important principle in life is to love God and the second one right behind it is to love other people. What happens?

Well, I believe that the world turns upside down. Christianity goes from being a bunch of rules to being a love affair with God. When you love someone you want to be with them, don’t you? You want to please them. You want to enjoy them you want to experience the joy of a close relationship.

When we love God we experience the joy of that kind of relationship with Jesus. It changes us. It is radical and profound. My most important principle in life is to love God with all my heart and all my soul with all my mind and with all my strength.

And it changes your outlook. No longer am I at the center of my universe. No longer is the most important thing in my life that of meeting my needs, entertaining me, comforting me, feeding my ego. I have to tell you that those things used to be important to me.

Every time my needs were not met, every time someone came along that was a bit smarter or better-looking I would feel like ‘I lost’. I’d feel that someone else had won and I’d lost. Every time my comfort needs were not met on an airplane flight or in a motel where I was staying I would rant and rave and carry on. But when we say the most important thing in my life is to love God first and then other people second, the focus shifts. It shifts off ourselves to other people.

You say, but Bernie what is love? What does it look like? How do I know if I’m loving God and if I’m loving other people?

Well, love is patient, love is kind. It is not envious or boastful or proud. It is not rude, it does not look after itself. It is not easily angered and it does not keep tabs on what other people do wrong. Love does not delight in evil but it rejoices in good. It rejoices in the truth. It always protects, it always trusts. Love always hopes, Love always perseveres. Love never fails. Now, these three things remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these, the greatest of these is love.

It’s not easy to love sometimes. People around us make mistakes and people hurt us. People ignore us and say bad things about us. People argue with us and try to cut us down. They try to step over us. Have you experienced that? It can happen at work. It can happen at home. Hey it happens in churches. It’s not easy to love people like that. But Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” In fact, He said, “Pray for your enemies.”

Love never fails. Even though some days it is hard to love, it is so much more fun to love other people first than it is to love ourselves first. It is so much more satisfying to love God and others than it is to love ourselves first.

What if love was the first principle in our lives … more important than everything else? To love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. That’s what Jesus said was the most important thing. And the second one is like it, to love other people more than ourselves.

What if love was the first principle in our lives? Maybe we’d lose more arguments but have more friends. Maybe we’d achieve less on the outside but deposit fortunes in the hearts of those around us. Maybe we’d struggle when it’s hard to love people but we’d taste the sweet fruit that only comes from loving. Maybe people would think we’re a bit weird for loving God but by loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength we might find the one thing that we’ve been searching for all our lives.

What if the most important principle, the biggest thing that guided our day to day decisions was love? Putting God before every other thing in our lives. I made that decision nine-and-a-half-years ago. I haven’t lived it perfectly. No one does. But as the months and years go by, a deep, deep sense of satisfaction has grown inside my heart.

What’s your most important principle? What’s the thing that makes you tick? Are we looking after ourselves first and foremost or is our most important principle – the thing that we want to do more than anything else – to love God with everything that we are. And as a result of loving him, no matter what it costs us, to love the people around us, the people closest to us, the people that sometimes hurt us the most? What if love was the first principle in our lives?

We live in a world where things aren’t always what they seem. There’s vinyl and there’s leather. There’s real plants and there’s artificial plants. There’s solid wood furniture and there’s wood veneer. There’s gold jewelry and there’s gold-plated jewelry.

In fact, the imitation often looks just as good as the real thing. At least for a little while. When you spend time with me how do you know that I’m for real? If I were to meet you how do I know that you are the genuine article? It turns out that authenticity is really quite important to us.

This week on A Different Perspective we are looking at the principles that we carry around inside us. Principles that help us to make right choices. When we have to make decisions and choices every day, what are the principles that guide those choices. If we have some good principles in place, we take the high road. Good principles lead to good choices. Good choices lead to good consequences.

If we have bad principles like dishonesty, selfishness, and back-biting this will lead to bad choices. Bad choices have bad consequences. That’s the ‘low road’. Sometimes people don’t have any principles. They’re all over the place. I call that the ‘no road’.

Life is full of small choices. Day after day, week after week they accumulate over time. When we look back on life, it is the sum of those choices and their consequences, that by and large make up our life. Yesterday, we talked about love. The first and most important principle was:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength”. The second one is just like it, “love others as you love yourself”.

That’s what Jesus said when someone asked him what the most important principle in life was. ‘Love’, not just as a romantic feeling, but love as a gritty, powerful, all prevailing, all abiding decision. That principal of love turns the world upside down. It changes everything 180 degrees. Instead of the focus now being on me, the focus is now on God. Instead of the focus now being on me, the focus is on other people.

Love is the key that opens so many other doors in our lives. When love becomes the most important principle that guides our decisions, loving God and loving others, it is as though the chains fall off. We walk out of this prison called ‘self’ and discover the incredible joy that comes with making decisions out of love instead of selfishness.

Who are the people that have influenced your life the most? I guess it is the people who have loved you the most. Not only talked about love, but lived love. You know, when we’re ugly, when we’re difficult to get along with, the people who love us at those times are the ones that have the most influence with us. They are the ones who can tell us hard things. They are the ones we trust.

Today, I would like to move on to another principle that I hold really dear to my heart. It is the principle of authenticity or integrity. Lots of people claim to be one thing but under the veneer there is deceit or there is corruption.

I think that’s why we find it so abhorrent when children are abused in churches. What has happened over the last half century is all coming out now. It’s been going on for years and in some places it has been systematically covered up. It’s not just the appalling notion of sexually abusing children, I mean, that is bad enough, but it is also the fact that the people who did this claim to be God’s leaders.

They stood up there at the front of churches and led people in prayers and songs and told them how to live their lives. These are the people, the very same people (not all, but a small number), who have betrayed the trust. They said they were one thing but it turned out underneath, that very thin veneer, they were something else entirely. The Apostle Paul wrote about it. He said:

“No wonder Satan himself masquerades around as an angel of light. It’s not surprising then if his servants masquerades as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.”

I remember a few years going into a jewelry store to buy an engagement ring for my then fiancée now my wife. When you go into a jewelry store and you want to buy a diamond ring you do not want a fake diamond, a zirconia. Now zirconia’s sparkle almost as much as diamonds do, but the sort of diamond ring I was looking for was a couple thousand dollars. The zirconia rings were only a few hundred dollars and looked about the same. But we wanted a diamond ring, not a fake one.

The second most important principle in my life after love is that my words should match my actions. That who I am on the outside, truly reflects who I am on the inside. The things that I say and do in the open, reflect the things that I think and do in secret.

Over the years I’ve spend a lot of time in the information technology industry. One of the things I did as a consultant was often to evaluate tenders. Companies would bid multi million dollar systems to a client of mine. I would be part of the tender evaluation process. Often we would have people come in from these companies to do presentations.

It was amazing. Some of them just trotted out glib, party lines. Some of them were so thin, and transparent. They could do everything, nothing would be a problem. There wouldn’t be any cost escalations. Those people by and large, were not the ones who won the work.

It was the genuine people, the real and honest ones that won the tender. They oozed experience. They admitted: “Look, this looks easy, but this might be difficult.” Don’t you love it when you meet someone and what you see is what you get. Those are the people we really like to be around, aren’t they.

We like authenticity. We like people to be for real. We don’t want some thin veneer, some transparent face that people plaster on just for us. Now, I’m not talking about perfection. No one is perfect. But it is easy to speak good holy words on the radio and still have some sin going on in my life that betrays your trust. It is true for me and it is true for you too. The decisions that I believe each one of us needs to take is that it is our responsibility. What goes on behind the scenes, where people can’t see is my responsibility.

Like that spider, I choose to put a main strut in my life. A principle that I build my decisions and my life on which is honest, decent, transparent, authentic, and speaks of integrity. We can make that decision. We can ask: “God, show me the things in my life that are not pleasing to you. I give you a complete open door on my life Lord. I want to turn away from those things that I know are wrong.”

Let me tell you something. Someday it is really, really hard to live out that decision. When I’m making small choices that you can’t see, choices that a lot of other people don’t see, the principle of integrity and authenticity – being real and honest with my soul, not trying to rationalize or kid myself – that principle of authenticity and integrity guides those decisions. It is the litmus test that I use when I’m trying to make a decision.

We all have to make our own decisions. We all have to decide what the principles are that guide our choices. For me, the first one is love. The second, after love, is integrity. Jesus said, I am the True Shepherd. That’s good enough for me. We saw that in the fruit of what Christ did. We saw that in the fact that He was prepared to lay down His life for you and me. Jesus was and is a man of integrity.

Where does integrity figure in your life and mine, in the scheme of things?

One of the biggest issues faced by many people today is achieving some sort of balance in their lives. When the front wheels of my car get out of balance there’s a sort of knocking effect in the steering wheel. It’s not too bad at first, but the longer I leave it the worse it gets.

Life can be like that too. One area of our life is out of balance and before we know it everything starts falling apart around us. Does that sound familiar?

This week on A Different Perspective, we are looking at our principles for living. What are our values or the principles deep down inside us somewhere that we hold dear and the principles that helps us to make decisions day to day.

You know, our lives are accumulations of choices and their consequences. As we look back over the months and the years you add all of those choices and consequences together and by and large, they are what make up our lives.

Sure some things happen outside of our control, sometimes really good things and sometimes really bad things. We can’t control those but we can certainly deal with the decisions and the choices that we make day to day.

If we have some good principles that sit underneath those decisions then when we were under pressure, when it’s difficult, when we’re a little bit confused, when we don’t quite know which directions life is headed, those principles – the things that we value more than anything else – can guide us to good choices.

Good principles lead to good choices. Bad principles will lead to bad choices, and bad choices have bad consequences.

A husband and wife that don’t spend enough time together, well, that’s a bad choice. They make that choice day after day, after day, after day, after day and all of a sudden, years down the track that grow apart and they end up divorced.

The principles we talked about so far this week, firstly, the principle of love. Turning the world upside down, taking a 180 degree different perspective and saying: “Instead of ‘me’ being at the center of the world, “me” at the center of the universe, I’m going to love God first and in loving God I’m going to love all the people around me and they are going to come before me.” It was the first principle – love that forgives, love that shows mercy.

The second principle we looked at yesterday was the notion of integrity and authenticity. How many people do we meet – we know that the face they put on and the things that they say are nothing like the real person underneath?

We value authenticity and integrity in other people. Shouldn’t that be one of the principles that we hold deep inside each one of us, a principle that helps us to make right choices, right decisions and to be honest and to be real?

Thethird one in my list is the whole issue of balance. The Apostle Peter in his first letter chapter 5 and verse 8, says this.

“Be well balanced and sober, be vigilant, because that enemy of yours, the devil, runs around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.”

Isn’t it interesting Peter says when things get out of balance in our lives it gives the devil an opportunity, an opening, a foot hold, a way in to attack us. And there are so many things in life that we can get out of balance.

Work and family. Some people are workaholics and they don’t spend enough time with their families it has ramifications. The role of being a parent and the role of being husband and wife. Sometimes they are stressed and strains, but do I spend the time with my husband and wife? Or do I spend time with the kids? We need to have that in balance.

Exercise and entertainment. People say that a football match is 24,000 people badly in need of exercise watching 24 blokes badly in need of a rest! Sometimes we spend more time being entertained and not enough time exercising. We don’t exercise, we’re not fit, we’re tired and lethargic.

Sleep and serving. Now it’s very easy for people to spend all of their time doing, serving, going out doing this, doing that, not getting enough sleep and rest. Those people end up burned out and they are not good to anyone.

Stress and distress. Some stress is good. You know, some stress keeps us going and we perform well but stress shouldn’t be too much because stress turns into distress. And when we are distressed, again, we’re not good to anyone.

Process and outcome. Some people spend too much time in the process, they never achieve anything. Some people are so focused on outcomes that they don’t bring other people along with them.

It’s important to balance the two, doing stuff and being with God. I can fall into a trap in what I do in ministry of believing that the things that I do when I’m studying the Bible to put messages together like this one, that’s my time with God. But I need to spend time with God, just for Him and just for me.

Now balance looks a little bit different in each of these areas for each one of us. We are different. We have different circumstances. We have different tolerances to stress, but unless we get these things in balance, – and there are so many other areas in our lives – things get out of whack and when things get out of whack, lives start falling down around us.

The key areas that I get out of balance in my life are firstly I have a tendency to work too hard and so in doing that I can neglect my family and I don’t get enough sleep or exercise.

Now radio programs, the things that I’m doing now which I really enjoy, used to be my hobby and release when I had another job as a consultant in information technology, but today they’ve become my work. Now I absolutely love doing what I’m doing, but even good things that we love doing that benefit others can get our lives out of balance.

The other day I was thinking, “You know, it’s time I got another hobby, a hobby that gives me some release.” And I was sitting, talking with someone, looking outside their window, and I think it was a God thing. I am a very visual person. I love pictures and looking at beautiful things and so God said to me, “Why don’t you take up photography?” I thought it was a really wonderful idea. There is something I can do, just for me, that I enjoy, that relaxes me, but at the same time I can really can get a sense of God’s creation. I can do that and get some balance back into my life.

I have a wonderful wife and she is the guardian of our family time and relationship. When I spend too much time working, she is the one that pulls me back and says, “Come on Bernie, let’s go and have some fun. Let’s go away for the weekend. Let’s have some time together.”

We need to have our lives in balance. And sleep, well those workaholics think that they have to work 24 hours a day. And I put my hand up, I can fall into that trap. Have a listen to what God says in Psalms 127 says:

“In vain you raise up early and stay up late toiling for food to eat because God grants sleep to all those that He loves.”

The principle of balance in my life helps me to make some good decisions. It helps me to say, “I’m going to take a break from work right now,” and turn around to the grand piano that’s sitting behind me in my study and worship God for ten minutes go down stairs and have coffee with my wife, give her a hug, tell her I love her.

It helps me prioritize all the things I have to do, some of them won’t get done today, but I’m not going to stress about. And this Saturday afternoon it will help me to take a couple of hours, drive down to the water and take some photos of the boats and the ocean.

Good principles lead to sound choices. Good choices lead to a good life. What about you? What parts of your life are just a little but out of plumb? Is it maybe work and family? Is it maybe sleep and rest? Is it maybe exercise? Is it maybe the diet? What parts of your life are out of balance?

And for those bits if we have the guts to say, “Look, you’re right, that part of my life is out of balance.” In that part of your life what choices can you make to bring it back into balance?

Because wherever there is a part of our lives that is out of balance, it has ramifications. It has impact. If it’s a family life then maybe the relationship between husband and wife is suffering. We can do something about that.

Where would the principle of balance make a difference in your life? How important is balance? What can you do to bring those parts of your life back into balance? What areas of your life are out of balance?

This week we’ve been talking about some good principles that we can adopt in our lives to help us to make good choices – you know, choices with good consequences. On Fridays I love to look at real life’s questions and prayer requests that we received on our website.

This week someone sent this one in. ‘My fiancée and I have just broken up. She finds it hard to forgive and I don’t want her to be angry and bitter. Can you please pray for her?’ Here’s something that happens in real life, relationship breakdown. How do you handle that when it does happen?

Over this week we looked at three principles that can help us to make good choices in life. The three have been Love, Integrity and Balance. Next week we’ll be looking at a few more like persistence and prayer, and some others.

Here in this prayer request from a young man, we see a break down of a relationship. From the wise written, it looks like it was his decision. Let’s have a listen again:

‘My fiancée and I just broke up. She finds it hard to forgive and I don’t want her to be angry and bitter. Can you please pray for her?’ We don’t know exactly what’s going on, but somewhere along the line, one of them had decided that it’s time to end the relationship. It’s amazing how many engaged couples actually choose to end the relationship rather than marry.

We all love a wedding don’t we, we would go, “Ah, the bride and we want people to get married.” But is it not better to have a broken engagement than a terrible marriage, three kids and a divorce. Relationship breakdown is a fact of life. Engagements fall apart. Marriages sometimes sadly fall apart. Friends can have a falling out. Work colleagues can have a falling out, even church members.

And when someone’s retrenched from their job, there’s a relationship breakdown between that person and their employer. It is sadly a fact of life. The question is when it does happen, how we handle it?
So often in a relationship breakdowns bitterness takes root in people’s heart. It eats away at them like a cancer, anger goes on and on and people just won’t let it go. Broken relationship can end up hurting people for years and years.

I’ve seen people who have been divorced who still talk about their ‘ex’ with that scorn, with that look on their face years later. What are some values we can take on board to help us to deal with relationship breakdown.

Remember this week we talked about love, integrity and balance. You know something? I see all of those things in this young man’s email. Firstly love, even though the relationship is broken down. And here we have a couple, you know, boy meets girl, they fall in love, they got engaged. They start dreaming about living a life together. Dreams are really powerful things when we set heart on something, when we plan on something.

No doubt, the girl in particular, would have been thinking about the wedding day and the dress and who would be her bridesmaid and what sort of cake would they have. You know all those things that are so incredibly natural.

And then this relationship has fallen apart and how easy is it for bitterness to happen. And the young man says here, he says, “Look, what I’m really concerned about is that she finds it hard to forgive.” And I see love in what he’s written, even though the relationship broke down, even though his dreams are gone.

He still shows care, he shows concern. He is worried about her enough to come to us on our website and write to us and say, listen, there’s a bunch of people out there praying, can you pray for her? Isn’t it a wonderful thing? Isn’t it a Jesus kind of thing?

Jesus says you can be nice to the people who like you, that’s easy. You can be nice to the people who you have a good relationship with, that’s easy. But your enemies, the people who hurt you, He says, “Why don’t you pray for them?”

And here is a young man living out a Jesus type decision. Is it hard? I bet it is. I bet you he’s hurting inside, too. He is aching inside, because he’s lost his dreams, too. Maybe it’s him who has come to the decision, to end this relationship, but he’s hurting, too and his first thing is, “Can you please pray for her?”

That is love. That is Christ-like love. What a wonderful principle. What a wonderful decision that he has made. He has decided not to alienate her, not to be angry, not to talk down to her. He has decided to love her and ask other people to pray for her.

The second thing I see in this email is integrity. Clearly he’s felt that it wasn’t right for the relationship to become a life long commitment. As I said before, it’s terrible when a relationship breaks up, but how much better for the relationship to end before a lifelong commitment is made?

Before those two people are joined together as one flesh. Before these two young people bring children into this world. It is so much better for the decision to be made then. A tough call and we do have to make tough calls in life sometimes.

I was talking to a man recently who was involved in the ministry and they had to retrench someone. This person just wasn’t doing the job that they needed them to do. And he said that it was such a difficult decision to make and yet it was the right decision.

They were determined that it would be a decision that was made in love. So even though they retrenched this person, they dealt with him in love. They gave him time, they gave him some money.

It was a matter of integrity. And I think this young man here, as I read his prayer request, what I see here is integrity. He’s made a decision … a decision that he believes is absolutely right, not a decision that he is going to compromise, but he has made that decision in love.

Integrity and love, it turns out they go hand in hand. And the third thing I see here is balance. Is he hurting? Absolutely. Is she hurting? Absolutely. But there is a sense here where he wants forgiveness. He wants her to forgive him. It seems that he has forgiven her in his heart.

He is looking to the future. He is looking to move on. He is looking out for himself, but also for her. Anger happens for a time, but the Bible said, “Be angry, but don’t sin.” And so he is doubtless had his emotions up and down, she is having her emotion up and down. But here is a man who is living out a decision to have some balance. Balance between the realities of the situation, the pain, and balance between the good things that God’s got for him and for her in the future.

At the beginning of the week, I started talking about a spider’s web. If you joined us during the week, you heard me talked a couple of times about a beautiful spider’s web that I once saw.

It was early one morning. I went outside and it was just a perfect spiders web and there had been dew at night, and there was water all over the spider’s web and the sun was just hitting it. It was just so beautiful. And as I stood and looked at it, I saw that the reason it was so beautiful was because the main supports, you know those main struts that spider jumps from one to the next, round and round and round to build the web, they were straight, they were true, and they were strong. They were the right foundation for that web.

Principles like love, like integrity, like balance. Principles in our lives that underpin those little day to day decisions that we make. Sometimes the big decisions that we make like this young man, those principles can end up giving us a life that is beautiful. A life that is true. A life that blesses other people.

Our life after all, by and large, is an accumulation of decisions and consequences. Are we making the sorts of decisions based on good, sound principle, like love, integrity and balance, are we making those sorts of decisions? Decisions that ultimately bless other people, decisions that ultimately bless us.