Have you ever tried to hammer a square peg into a round hole? Doesn’t work so well does it. Generally the hole survives just fine, put the peg ends up as a mangled mess. So why is it that so many people – people even who believe in Jesus – are trying to live out their lives as square pegs in round holes?  

When I was young – finishing high school and making my career choices, I came very, very close to making a couple of major mistakes. I was blessed to be a fairly academically inclined so I basically had my choice of whatever university course my heart desired.

There were three on my shortlist. Medicine, law and an Information technology degree. Back in those days medicine was by far the favoured career. It was seen as the pinnacle of achievement and certainly my father wanted me to study medicine.

Law was right up there as well. Both of those professions appeared to pretty much guarantee a big income.

This whole IT thing was pretty new. The question was, which one to choose. As things turned out, I’d been accepted to train as an Army Officer, undertaking a four-year IT degree along the way, and it was that sense of excitement of a military career which, as a young man, to be honest with you, which swung me to that decision.

As I look back on that choice now – I thank God that I didn’t choose medicine or law. I can’t stand the sight of blood pretty much, which is not exactly the sort of prerequisite you want to have for a career as a doctor. And the law, as I discovered later, is all about detail. Lots and lots and lots of detail, and whilst I can handle detail from time to time, it’s not my first love. I would have ended up drowning in it.

I think back to that pivotal career decision that I made way back when I was seventeen and a half years old – with not a lot of life experience to draw on exactly and I shudder at how easily I could have chosen something that I wasn’t suited to.

I literally would have found myself living my life as a square peg in a round hole – and that, I imagine would be an incredibly uncomfortable position to find myself in.

There’s a basic rule or life principle if you will, that goes something like this: square pegs belong in square holes, and round pegs, well … they belong in round holes. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out do you now? And yet, as I said at the beginning of the program, so many people are living life as a square peg in a round hole.

A large survey conducted in the US not so long ago revealed that only 19% of workers were satisfied with their job. Which means that 81% weren’t satisfied with their job. Of those, 16% were somewhat dissatisfied, and the rest really weren’t happy. That’s pretty much Pareto’s 80/20 law – with the vast majority unhappy.

Another global survey found that over half – 56% of people – wanted to find a new job.

Now, there can be many reasons for those terrible statistics. Pay and conditions, poor management are just two. But if I were a betting man – which I am not – I would put money on the table that one of the major reasons is that people are doing jobs that they’re just not suited to.

You yourself know that there are some things in life that give you great satisfaction, and other things that leave you completely drained. Now that I’m getting older, I watch people who are grandparents. We have one couple who lives a few doors away on the same floor in our apartment block, who look after a different set of their grandchildren almost every day of the week, while the parents work.

Other grandparents, can’t stand the thought of having to look after children, because it’s just not what they enjoy doing. They brought up their own children, and now they want a break from all that.

And so wherever there is a mismatch between the requirements of the role and the natural motivations and talents and abilities of the individual – there you have a square peg, in a round hole. And it’s generally not the hole that feels the pressure. The role is what the role is. The requirements of the position don’t change. It’s the individual who has to squeeze themselves into a role that they’re just not suited with.

When I was at Bible College many years ago, the Principal of the College, Dr Barry Chant, made us memorise one particular Bible verse. In fact, he used to joke – although I’m not sure it was so much a joke – that unless we were able to recite this verse, we wouldn’t be able to graduate.

At the time, I thought it was rather an odd choice of Bible verses. Why this one from among the 31,102 verses in the Bible. Well, here it is. Ephesians 2:10:

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do the good works which God prepared beforehand for us to walk into.

The older and hopefully wiser I’ve become since those days, the more I’ve discovered the wisdom of Barry’s insistence that we memorise this one verse. Because what it says, is that God mad us; He handcrafted us we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus and He made us – you and me – with a purpose in mind.

He in fact made us in order to do the good works that He prepared beforehand for us to do – literally to walk into. So picture your life – this journey over hill and dale. Just as you turn round the next corner, or come over the next rise waiting there for you is one of the good works that God made you to do – one of the ones that He prepared before time even began for you to make happen.

Now – do you imagine for one moment that God made a mistake? That He made you to do things that you weren’t good at doing? Or things that were impossible for you to do? No way!! God knew exactly what He was doing when He made you. You are handcrafted, you’re a perfect fit to do what He made you to do. So why is it that we go and live a life we were never made to live?

Well sometimes it’s stubbornness, other times it’s ignorance. Or perhaps you’ve allowed circumstances to sweep you along in life, without ever taking a stand and saying to yourself – Hang on a minute, what I really want to do is … this! My real dream in life is to go and be this and do that.

The most common question I am asked when I talk on this – which I do rather a lot these days, because like Barry Chant I’ve come to believe that being the me I was meant to be is absolutely critical in life – the most common question I’m asked is this: How do I know what it is that God made me to do?

Not an unfair question. Well, the answer is dead simple. Each one of us has something that gets us enthused in life, something that we’re passionate about. Something that we’re really good at – probably better at than anyone else we know. For me it’s doing what I’m doing now. I love telling stories. I get up mostly at three or four in the morning to prepare these radio messages. Why? Not because I have to but because I love to!

I love telling stories. I love seeing people’s lives transformed through those stories.

What are you passionate about? What do you absolutely love doing? What is it that you’re better at, than pretty much any person you know? Maybe you love working with your hands, or looking after children, or organising lots of detailed things, or … whatever it is, there is your pointer to what God made you to do.

No. It’s not always going to be easy, or convenient, or fun, or comfortable. Nothing worthwhile ever is. But there, right there, is the thing that God made you to do. Start walking in that direction, and all of a sudden a whole bunch of new opportunities will open up.

Those opportunities are the good works that God prepared beforehand for you to do. Get it?

There are a good many Bible–believing, Christ–loving people for whom life is not turning out to be what they expected it to be. It’s not at all uncommon. and when they share their disappointment with me, my question is simply this: So … how’s your prayer life? I don’t think you’d be surprised by the answer!

There’s not a single person on this planet who hasn’t been wronged or hurt by someone else. That stuff happens. It just does. But when we hang onto unforgiveness, the hurt just keeps on hurting; the regrets of the past end up ruining today, and robbing us of tomorrow. There’s only one way to fix that.

So – when was the last time someone hurt you? Come on, think back. For probably the majority of us, we don’t have to think back very far – just the last 24 hours for most people. A harsh word. Being left out. Being ignored. Being passed over. Being misunderstood.

It doesn’t take all that much does it to get hurt. And they’re just the small things. Then there are the big things like the unfaithfulness of a spouse, physical and emotional abuse, theft and violence. There are plenty of people listening to this message today who have been some of those. In fact there are more people listening to this message around the world today, who are living in poverty, or without basic housing, clean water, sanitation and safety, than there are those living in the comfortable affluence of the west.

So, back to you, back to the people who have hurt you in your life – can I ask you, how easy do you find it to forgive them? Is it something that comes naturally, or do you struggle to forgive? Well the answer for most of us is that forgiveness is one of the most unnatural acts of all.

Because when someone wrongs you, that innate sense of justice that you have built into you, because you’ve been created in the image of God – who is, after all, the God of justice – your God –given sense of justice demands that it be put right, correct?

When you are wronged, things should be righted. When someone causes you to suffer loss, then justice demands that they should recompense you. That’s why people sue one another.

But forgiveness is the exact opposite in a sense. Forgiveness is me giving up my right to hurt you, when you’ve hurt me. Forgiveness is me giving up the recompense that justice demands that I should have. And for God, forgiveness is rather a big deal.

Jesus once said this (Mark 11:25):

Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.

So – us forgiving others, is a precursor to God forgiving us. Have you wondered, how is it that this God of justice, is so focussed on forgiveness? How is it that justice and forgiveness can live side by side in the one person? Isn’t there a conflict between the two?

The answer is that these two – justice and forgiveness – are opposed to one another. Imagine if you will, the murderer who is found guilty by a court and it comes to the time when the sentence is handed down. Imagine if the judge said, ‘Look young man, I know that you’re guilty of this terrible crime, but I have decided today to forgive you. You are free to go.’

It’s inconceivable isn’t it? We as a community would be completely outraged if something like that transpired in a court of the land, because we demand that justice should be done. That the person should be punished for their crime.

But God’s call on our lives, is for us to forgive others:

Be kind to one another, tender–hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you (Ephesians 4:32)

The problem with unforgiveness, other than the fact that it offends God, is that it continues to hurt us. Let’s say that someone hurts you and you decide not to forgive them. What happens then, is that you keep living through that hurt over and over again. You keep planning on how you can get revenge.

When we fail to forgive, the hurt keeps on hurting. It’s like giving that person who hurt us, rent free space in our hearts and minds, so they can keep causing us pain. And when you look at it that way, it simply doesn’t make sense. Sure, our sense of justice says we should hang on to it until justice is done.

But common sense, says, let it go. Forgive them, without any expectation that that person will apologise, or mend their ways or ask for our forgiveness. Because when we let it go, we’re free from the hurt. When we forgive and choose to forget, the pain starts to dissipate.

You’ve seen this and you’ve probably even done this – when you fail to forgive someone and you just keep on throwing it back in their face. Is that good for you? Is that good for them? Is that good for your relationship with that person or with God?

Marlene Dietrich once said this:

Once a woman has forgiven her man, she should not reheat his sins for breakfast.

Not bad – and how true. And it’s just not about women forgiving men; it’s about men forgiving women and other men.

Listen, this conflict between justice and forgiveness is nothing new. God is the God of justice – absolute justice. Nothing sways Him – He is completely impartial. And yet He is also the God of love – in fact the Bible tells is that God is love.

So what does this God of justice do with His love? What does this God of justice do when He comes across you and me who’ve sinned against Him, who’ve offended Him, and we deserve punishment? We’ve all turned our backs on Him in thought, word and deed and some point in our lives and probably the last time is not all that long ago.

We deserve His wrath and His punishment. And yet He loves us, so how does He satisfy His absolute sense of justice and of love when it comes to you and me? (John 3:16,17)

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Forgiveness is the supreme act of love. It always, always costs us something, but it’s always, always worth it in the end. Because it sets us free from the hurt, free to get on with our lives.

Many people often ask me – But Berni, how can I forgive someone who has hurt me so much? How do I actually do that? It’s not easy!

Absolutely it’s not easy. I never said that it was. The small things, the harsh words spoken in a family, those things are easy to forgive if we’re close to Jesus. The closer we get to Him, the more we wrap our hearts around the sacrifice He made for us so that we could be forgiven, the easier it is to forgive the little things – you can learn to do that easily, on the fly.

But those big things, the people who’ve really hurt us, those big hurts from the past, how do we forgive those? How can we be set free of the hurt? How can we stop yesterday from ruining today and robbing us of tomorrow?

Well, I only know one way. It’s what Jesus taught us to do, and as counterintuitive as it feels at the time, it’s the only thing that I have found that works:

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. ’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:43-44)

When you pray for your enemies, God changes your heart. His Spirit and His Word end up working in you to soften you, to make you more like Him and to set you free from the anguish that you feel. The stuff Jesus teaches us to do – as much as it flies in the face of conventional wisdom – really works.

And that’s the road to a stunning life, living our lives based on His wisdom, not the world’s wisdom. You just can’t live that stunning life God has planned for you, when you have the bitterness of unforgiveness reigning in your heart.

You would not believe the number of Bible–believing, Jesus–loving people I’ve met, who don’t take God at His Word. They open their Bibles and read something difficult, or challenging or something that requires a bit of faith to act upon, and what they do is they mentally strike those verses out of the Bible. Not for me that one!

If God is God, if God loves you beyond measure, then it follows ipso facto that He has an amazing plan for your life. Problem is, so often we’re expecting something else entirely – the trinkets and the baubles that the world offers. And anyone whose expectations are working against God’s plans, is just not going to have a very happy life, are they?

I don’t know about you, but I’m one of these people that loves to live life to the full. I want each and every day to be something special – and most mornings when I wake up, I have this sense of opportunity and anticipation of what today will bring.

Not every morning of course. Some mornings I’m tired, especially when I’ve been travelling, and speaking late in the evening and then I have to stump up the next morning and do it all again. Sure – some mornings it’s hard to face the next day.

But by and large, to me, each new day is a new opportunity. And that’s exactly what the Bible teaches us:

This is the day that the Lord has made’ let is rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118:24)

That doesn’t mean that everything is always going swimmingly well in our lives. It just means that whatever our circumstances, there’s something to look forward because today – this very day – is the day that the Lord has made and He has a plan for your life today.

I can say that, in fact, I know that, because again, that’s what the Bible tells us and the Bible is, after all – God’s very Word, His living Word to you and to me. The Bible is God speaking directly and unequivocally to you and me today.

This is what God says about your day today:

In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them. (Psalm 139:16,17)

So, the Lord your God knows what your today holds. He planned it an eternity ago. And it’s a good plan. A plan made by this God who loves you beyond measure. But the problem is that God’s plans and our expectations often don’t match up.

So what are your expectations of today and tomorrow? What are you hoping that they hold? What do you want them to bring to your life? Well, often our expectations revolve around what we think is going to be good for us. In fact “often” is something of an understatement. We always expect things to be fantastic … for me, right?

Our expectations generally revolve around success. Success in relationships, success at work, success in our finances and in our health and in pretty much every sphere of our lives. We want to be healthy, wealthy and wise. We’d like everybody to love us and always agree with us. We’d like lots of money in the bank so that we don’t have any financial pressures. We want our marriages and families to be perfect. And, oh, by the way, a nice, sunny, warm day would be just perfect to top it all of Lord. Yep, that’s what I’d like today to be. And tomorrow. And the next day and pretty much the rest of my life.

And Lord I’d like to live to a ripe old age. Forever would be good. Nice and comfortable and safe and happy and content without any stresses or strains or arguments or ill health to ruin my day.

That’s pretty much it isn’t it? That’s what we, by and large, expect out of life. In fact our hopes and expectations revolve around the things of this word. We’re expecting the world of God. But have a listen to what Jesus says about you and me, in His final prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, just before He goes off and gets Himself crucified for you and for me:

And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one … I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. (John 17:11,15-17)

So according to Jesus, we don’t belong to the world and the world doesn’t belong to us. His prayer to His father for you and me is that God would protect us and keep us safe in the truth. Protect us from what? Protect us from the world, because when we believe in Jesus, believe you me the world isn’t going to like that. It’ll try to seduce us, discredit us, and stomp on us – aided and abetted by Satan and his army of demons.

Is that what you’re expecting, today, tomorrow, the next day and for the rest of your life? Because that’s exactly what Jesus promises us will happen:

I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world. (John 16:33)

What we should be expecting, what we should be hoping for is that the Father will answer Jesus’ prayer for us in our lives. What we should be hoping for is that the victory that Jesus won for us will bring courage into our hearts. And what we should be hoping for, and looking forward to and expecting is the prize that comes at the end of all of this:

For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labour for me; and I do not know which I prefer. I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. (Philippians 1:22,23)

Paul is torn! What are you hoping for? The world? Or are you hoping for Christ? Are you expecting the world of God, and all the baubles and trinkets that it offers but will one day perish? Or are you hoping in this certainty of life everlasting with Jesus, forever and ever and ever, amen?

God’s plans are God’s plans. He’s not going to change them for you and me. So we can either hope for the world and struggle for the rest of our lives, our hope in Him and live out His plans. The question is – which one will it be? Hmm?

What is it that makes us expect life to give us this fairy-floss dream that we know is completely and utterly unrealistic and then get all disappointed when it doesn’t work out that way (which it never ever was to start with, right)?

God’s promise is not that He’s going to take the pain and the suffering away. In fact, when you listen to Jesus, it’s quite the opposite. His promise is though that in the midst of the pain and the suffering and the loss and the tears, we will know His unspeakable joy; His peace which passes all understanding’ the certain, rock solid hope of an eternity with Jesus.

His promise is that with our eyes firmly set on the Author and Perfector of our faith, we will be transformed from glory to glory into His image – the power of sin being washed away and the freedom that only comes in Christ an abundant reality in our lives.

Is that a stunning life or what?

But we can’t grab a hold of that stunning life, we can’t live that stunning life, when we’re always chasing after the trinkets that that the world dangles under our noses.

Perception is reality, and for many a Christ-follower, their wrong expectations rob them of the absolutely stunning life that God wants them to live. “Stunning” on the one hand and “sacrifice” and “suffering” on the other, don’t seem to go together do they? The seem to be diametrically opposed.

Until you look at the Cross of Christ – the most stunning life and sacrifice of all time. That’s the life that He has for you. A stunning life.

So … will you take up your Cross and follow Him?

Will you?