There are plenty of people and things in this world that want to rub us the wrong way – things that annoy us and some days they just all seem to gang up on us at the same time. So – then what?

It seems like a funny thing to be talking about on the program, but being annoyed is one of those emotions that can eat away at us like cancer. Some days we’re all irritated at something. I remember, recently I was flying internationally. My last meeting in the country that I was in, well … it hadn’t gone quite as I expected.

I’d been working some long hours while I was there and then the taxi driver didn’t take what I thought was the most direct route to the airport; the security guard at the airport was being so difficult; the woman at the check-in counter was a real pain and to top it all off the plane was running two-and-a-half hours late. By the time I was six or seven hours into that flight I’d had enough. All I wanted to do was, “Let me off this plane! That’s it. I’ve had enough! Get me off!”

The temptation was to be narky with the person who was sitting next to me and to snap at the stewards on the plane. You know how it is. You get to a point where you’re so cranky and agitated and annoyed that all you want to do is snap someone’s head off. Whether you’re someone who flies a lot or not, I think you’ve been in similar situations. All these little things seem to conspire to rub you up the wrong way. All these seemingly minor things come at you one after the other. It’s like they’re ganging up on you. Like Chinese water torture – drip, drip, drip, drip – and before long you’re ready to scream. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

For some of us it happens once in a while. But for other people well … they live their whole lives in a constant state of annoyance. It seems that nothing’s good enough. Their wife or their husband – not good enough; the service at the local restaurant – not good enough; the Government – not good enough; their children – not good enough; the place where they live – not good enough; their boss at work – not good enough.

We have a name for people like that; they’re called perfectionists. Nothing is ever up to their standard. Now, I happen to understand this state of living particularly well, because for a long time that’s how I lived my life; probably for the best part of the first 30 years of my life. I can tell it’s not a lot of fun; in fact it’s no fun at all because you are constantly annoyed with people. If you are annoyed with situations and with people it shows.

It may be that you have the force of character in order to bully people into doing things for you. But people who know you are constantly annoyed with them, constantly judging them, constantly criticizing them, they’re not going to do anything for you willingly and they’re certainly not going to go out of their way to help you. I’m someone who has very high standards at work, in my behaviour, and with that came arrogance – this attitude that it’s so hard to soar like an eagle when you’re surrounded by a bunch of turkeys. When I was living my life that way, I was never happy, I was never content; I was never able to build close relationships of friendship and mutual understanding and respect and support.

I wonder if there isn’t a little bit of that in all of use – some to a greater extent, others to a lesser extent – where we judge other people by how we would have done it. Mmmm. But there is one group of people in this world who seem … well, they’re people who’ve experienced great tragedy in their lives; people who perhaps stare death in the face, who seem not to get so easily annoyed.

I have a great friend called Keith. He and I co-authored a book. About twenty-something years ago he broke his neck in a surfing accident and he came very close to losing his life. He’s had many operations since. He spent months in traction, he was told he would never walk again, and still today the guy’s often in a great deal of pain. But you know something funny about Keith? Nothing much upsets the guy. He seems to be able to take things in his stride. And that’s that point I want to get to today.

Some of us allow the little things to get to us; the little needles from other people to get under our skin, and yet others don’t. Some of us expect perfection in everything all the time. We live in a world where nothing and no one is perfect. It doesn’t matter how cranky, how annoyed we get, it is never, ever going to change. We live in an imperfect world. Not so long as you and I draw breath on this earth is it going to change. Would you agree?

So then you have to ask yourself, “What’s the point of being annoyed all the time? What does it achieve? Does it change people? Does it change the world?” Well, certainly not in a positive way, does it?

I’ve lived my life in two different ways. For most of my life I’ve been annoyed with everyone and everything most of the time. It wasn’t fun for me; it wasn’t fun for everyone else. It didn’t make a positive difference in this world. It certainly didn’t help me live an extraordinary life. And then about twenty years ago I came to the realisation that, “you know what, I’m not perfect either. I do things and say things that annoy other people too.” And with God’s help that’s changed everything for me, that realisation.

Every now and again, things do annoy me, sure, but I don’t have to live my life in a constant state of annoyance, and that means that I have much, much more peace in my life. There’s a great verse in the Bible, written a couple of thousand years ago by the Apostle Paul. It says this:

With all humility and gentleness, with patience bear one another in love. (Ephesians 4:2)

It seems that the antidotes to being annoyed all the time are humility, gentleness and patience. Maybe the next time someone or something annoys you, maybe the next time a bunch of tiny little things gang up on you all one after the other and you’re tempted to be annoyed, to be critical, to complain, you can remember those three – humility, gentleness and patience. I’m still learning, I’m still on the journey but I have so much more peace and joy in my life these days because I spent much, much less time being annoyed with the rest of the world.

It’s pretty simple. Would you agree? And right at the heart of this huge change for me in my life is the person of Jesus because I don’t have the power to be patient; I don’t have the power to be humble and gentle in my own right. It’s Jesus and what He did for me that brought about the change and in fact is still bringing about the change.

Now, another thing that Paul wrote to his friends at Colossae is this. Colossians chapter 3:12-13:

Since God chose you to be the holy people He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tender-hearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults. Forgive anyone who offends you; remember the Lord forgave you so you must forgive others.

It’s the memory of the pain that Jesus suffered on the cross to forgive me that brings about the amazing change in my life. Now how can I possibly be annoyed with people all the time if Jesus suffered to pay for all the things that I do to annoy God.

If that much grace and mercy has been shown to me at such a huge cost, the suffering and death of God’s own Son on the Cross, how can I possibly stay annoyed at you and the rest of the world all the time. The two can’t co-exist. You can’t believe one thing and then do the complete opposite. Can you?

Have you ever wanted to take revenge on someone for something they did? It’s a pretty common desire when people make us angry. But when you have taken that revenge – how did it make you feel?

There are some people in my life who have really hurt me. Of course, we all have ups and downs and we all suffer emotional bruises and scratches along the way. That’s pretty normal. But what’s also fairly normal, sad but true, is that we each have some people in our lives who have deeply, deeply hurt us. Sometimes they do something really, really bad like abusing you when you were child; or a wife or a husband cheating on their spouse; or a business partner swindling you out of money. Other times its not that there’s anything particularly big or bad about what they’ve done, it’s funny how the little things can really hurt.

One of my greatest memories of growing up as a child was that I was never really one of the ‘in’ kids. I was always different somehow. See, all the other boys, they were good at sport, running, jumping, football, cricket – but I wasn’t. I was a short, dumpy, studious kind of a kid. I could play 3 different musical instruments because I came from a musical family. I was almost always at the top of my class, I was a keen learner but I couldn’t play sport for nuts. I’m a big cricket fan but I can’t hold a bat or bowl a ball. And all that in a sports-mad nation like Australia. Well as a kid growing up, it was a big deal I have to tell you.

So the other children would poke fun at me, pick on me and that affected my own view of myself. It affected what they call my self-esteem. And it only got much worse when after finishing school I joined the military and that whole negativity was reinforced. So they don’t have to be really big things. I remember wanting to take revenge on the kids who made fun of me and picked on me.

I would plot these sinister things in my mind, and you know, when I hear about one of those high school massacres, it brings back those dark and difficult days. And I can still remember vividly my feelings for revenge. Now I never seriously contemplated anything like a massacre, but I have some small understanding of how the pressure and the other children can cause someone to snap like that. It’s a terrible, terrible thing.

Many people spend much of their time thinking about revenge. Wars are about revenge. You look at the centuries of killing in Northern Ireland, in the Middle East. Much of the escalation was about revenge – tit for tat killings. And whilst it may feel at the time that revenge is justified, revenge never fixes anything. It never heals anything. It doesn’t restore things. It doesn’t make things better. Revenge appears to be logical but it’s the worst thing we can do.

The opposite of revenge is forgiveness. The opposite of revenge is reconciliation. One of the great marvels of the ending of the apartheid system in South Africa was the leadership of Nelson Mandela who having spent 27 years in prison took on the presidency of the nation with a heart to see healing and not revenge.

Of course, South Africa still has it’s problems, of course it will take more time, maybe a generation or two, to see yet more change, but it’s Mandela’s refusal to exact revenge that makes him one of the greatest and most respected leaders of our time. And of course, before him, in India there was a man called Mahatma Ghandi. And before those two there was a man called Jesus. And this is what Jesus had to say about revenge. He said:

Look, you’ve heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’. But I say to you, don’t resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek turn the other one 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 everybody who begs from you and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. (Matthew 5:38-42)

Now my reaction to that when I first read it was that this is about being a weakling. I should just roll over, I should just be a doormat for people to walk all over and wipe their feet on. But as the years have passed it’s more and more struck me that turning the other cheek is a huge act of courage.

It takes a lot of strength not to lash out with revenge. It takes a huge amount of courage to refuse to take revenge. When someone offends you and you just want to say something harsh back to them, holding your tongue, staying silent is really, really hard, isn’t it? Letting injustice pass and simply forgiving it without having a say, without getting restitution, without at least taking a swipe is so difficult.

And yet as we see in Mandela’s case, as we see in Ghandi’s case in recent history there is a greatness about choosing to break the cycle of revenge; there is a greatness about reconciliation; there is a greatness about being the person that says, “No, I will not take revenge”. It takes courage, it takes character, it takes the ability to forgive. And that right there is maturity and greatness.

I wonder how different this world would be if just you and I learned to be people who turned the other cheek. How much less conflict there would be. Seems to me that turning the other cheek … well, it’s going to cost us something in the short term, but it’s the one thing that will break the cycle of abuse and revenge when we refuse to strike back.

It takes the wind out of your assailant’s sails; it turns the opinion of those around us against the person who’s doing the wrong; it brings goodness into a difficult situation. And let’s face it, we’re never going to overcome evil with evil, are we? The only way to overcome evil is with goodness because evil begets evil.

Let me encourage you, the next time you want to take revenge try something different – turn the other cheek. You might just be amazed at the result.

Okay, but words are cheap. It’s easy for Jesus to say these things, but it’s another thing entirely for Him to live them out. But that’s exactly what He did. He didn’t just say this stuff – He lived it.

On the night He was betrayed by one of His own to be crucified, they came to arrest Him in the garden of Gethsemane. And Peter, one of His Disciples, drew a sword and cut off the ear of one of the assailants. But Jesus said, ‘No more of this!’ And He touched the man’s ear and healed Him. (Luke 22:51)

Having done that, Jesus let them arrest Him, accuse Him, beat Him and nail Him to a cross. He took this ‘turning the other cheek’ thing to the extreme, to the point where it cost Him His life. Revenge never wins but turning the other cheek does. Forgiving does. Love always defeats evil and good always defeats evil. It’s what the Apostle Paul wrote many years later:

Don’t repay anyone evil for evil but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it’s possible, as far as it depends on you, live peaceably with everyone. Never avenge yourselves but leave room for the wrath of God. For it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord’. Now if any of your enemies is hungry, feed them; if they’re thirsty, give them something to drink. By doing these things you will heap burning coals on their heads. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:17-21)

Are you challenged? Yes, me too. But you know something, it works!

There are a lot of things in this life that we can worry about. Our health, finances, relationships, family, work and quite a lot more. What are you worried about at the moment – and what difference is your worrying actually making, hmm?

So what is it that’s worrying you just at the moment? Is it your health, maybe it’s your finances, perhaps it’s your job, will you have a job tomorrow, will you have a career? Are you going to get married or is your marriage ever going to get any better than this? Are your children ever going to grow up to be great human beings? Will the economy pick up? And what about… It’s quite a list isn’t it and I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface?

Sometimes we worry over little things, things that really in the scheme of things aren’t that important. I wonder what so and so thinks of me, do they like me, do they think I’m stupid or ugly? How do I look in these clothes? Some people I’m telling you are a mass of insecurities. Some people waste their whole lives worrying about stuff that, well it doesn’t matter.

There’s a bit of that in all of us. The other day I was crossing the road at a traffic light, it was green for pedestrians and red for the cars, I stepped out onto the crossing and just turned to the right for a little to talk to my wife Jacqui, we were coming home from a favourite cafe and as I turned back a car travelling at I’m guessing at least sixty kilometres an hour whizzed literally past me two or three inches in front of my nose. If I’d taken a slightly bigger step or if I’d been walking just a little bit faster I probably wouldn’t be alive anymore or at the very least I’d be in a coma in hospital somewhere.

I can’t tell you how shocked I was but the thing that I didn’t expect is that for the rest of that day, in fact for the rest of the week, every time I was confronted with something that should have been worth worrying about, it didn’t worry me in the least. When you’re confronted with the important things in life like am I going to be alive tomorrow or not, the little things all of a sudden, well we see them in perspective.

I wonder if in the next twenty-four hours you wrote down every single thing that you’re worried about, everything that concerns you and also the number of minutes you’ve worried about them and then sat down over a cup of tea or coffee and read through that list in the cold hard light of day how many of those things really have been worth worrying about. Well?

Of course there are other things in life that seem much larger and seem to be worth worrying about. A woman who has a lump in her breast and she’s sitting there in the Doctor’s surgery waiting to hear the test results. She probably didn’t sleep so well last night. She’s probably really, really worried sitting there, waiting for what seems like forever.

The man who’s just lost his job and he’s travelling home on the train to tell his wife: how am I going to pay the mortgage or the rent? How am I going to put food on the table? How am I going to find another job? I’m fifty-five, no one wants to hire a fifty-five year-old. I was having coffee with a man in exactly that situation just the other week and those were exactly the things that he was worried about and yet, as I said at the beginning of the program, worrying doesn’t solve a single thing, not a thing.

That’s exactly the point that Jesus was making when He was talking with a bunch of relatively poor subsistence farmers and trades people. People whose lives were at the complete whim of the Romans because they were the occupying force in the land of Israel. Have a listen; it comes from the Bible, Matthew chapter 6 beginning at verse 25:

And Jesus said, ‘I tell you don’t worry about your life, what you’re going to eat, what you’re going to drink, about your body, what you’re going to wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, they neither reap nor sow, they don’t gather into barns and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Aren’t you worth so much more than them?

And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to the span of your life? And why do you worry about clothing? Look at the lilies in the field, how they grow. They don’t toil nor spin yet even Solomon in all his glory was never clothed like one of these.

But if God so clothes the grass of the field which is alive today and tomorrow it’s thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you you of little faith. Therefore don’t worry saying, ‘what will I eat or what will I drink or what will I wear?

For it is the Gentiles who strive for all those things and indeed your heavenly father knows what you need but strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things will be given to you as well. So don’t worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will bring worries of it’s own, today’s trouble is enough for today.

You know what I know, one day I’m going to die, just as sure as God made little green apples one day Berni Dymet is going to breath his last breathe on this earth. My heart will stop, my blood will stop flowing through my veins and my spirit, who I am, is going to depart from this body that I’ve fed and cleaned and exercised and lived in for however long I’ve had on this earth.

How will I die? Well you know at this point I have no idea. Maybe tomorrow a car or bus will hit me, and that will be the end, quick as you like. Maybe next month I’ll be diagnosed with cancer and given only a few weeks to live or perhaps in forty or fifty years time when I’m in my nineties or even a hundred years old I’ll end up just dying in my sleep. Who knows?

But it’s going to happen one day. Now I can worry about that, sure I can but that’s not going to change a single thing. There are some things I can do that will probably extend my life, if I eat healthily, exercise, and don’t smoke. Well I’m doing all those things; I’ve lost a lot of weight but still who knows about the next time I cross at the traffic lights?

Jesus is saying, there’s only one person that does and that’s God Himself. He has it all under control. He knows what I need, what you need. And if you want to have a life that’s free from worry the one thing you can do is to trust that He’s got it all under control and that His plan is a good plan.

I don’t know where you are in your life but these days there aren’t many things that I worry about and trusting in God’s goodness and in God’s provision and in His plan is the only thing I’ve been able to find that sets me free from worry.

It’s a strange thing but the closer I get to God, the more I listen to Him and the more I worship Him, the less I worry. It’s not something I have to work hard at. The absence of worry is just … it’s an obvious and natural outcome of my relationship with Jesus.

Yet you know, I do get rattled by things sometimes, we all do. But the only place to take that is to Jesus and He does take the worry away. The energy that we put into worrying can be put to so much better use in prayer. Have a listen to this passage of Scripture that I come back to again and again in my life, Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 and 7:

Paul says, ‘Don’t worry about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.

See what it says here? Take the time and energy you’ve spent worrying and use it instead in prayer and what’s going to happen is that God will put His peace around your heart and your mind. That Jesus Himself will take the worry and the anxiety away in a way that someone who’s never experienced it simply, well it doesn’t make sense, in a way that completely surpasses all understanding.

My friend it is time to trust your God for everything, big or small, it’s time to trust God for all your needs, in your relationships, in your job, in your family, in your health, sitting outside the Doctor’s surgery waiting for the test results and watching your children make mistakes. Everything.

There are things in this life that we get a bit nervous and anxious about … but every now and then we’re confronted by something that strikes fear into our hearts. Fear – how do you handle it?

When was the last time that you were afraid? I’m not talking just about being a little bit nervous, I’m not talking a bit anxious about something, I’m talking serious fear. That sort of gut wrenching, debilitating fear that we all go through from time to time. When was the last time you felt the cold blade of fear pierce your heart?

I have no doubt whatsoever that you know exactly what I’m talking about because we’ve all been there in that place and I have no doubt that you can remember the last time of great fear in your life as though it was yesterday.

I can think back to maybe four or five times in my life when I’ve been incredibly afraid. One time was when we just bought a new house. It was an old place built back in the 1890’s badly in need of renovation. An old three-storey terrace and we felt really led to sell our previous house and buy this one and do it up.

We tend to make big decisions in our lives only after praying, only after committing them to God and we, my wife Jacqui and I, felt really this is the step that God wanted us to take so we did. And once the house was settled and we moved in we submitted our renovation plans to the local council, it’s all pretty normal and what came back shocked us and filled us with fear.

Despite all the normal disclosures by the venders and all the normal searches by our solicitor during the purchasing process it seems there was some obscure ruling that designated our house as a low cost rental boarding house. Now there are a few large terraces in our street that were just that but our place? And the result of that was that not only that we may not be able to do our renovations at all but quite possibly the government could force us to turn the place back into a boarding house.

The night I found that out I was sick to the stomach. I didn’t sleep at all that night; fear gripped every cell of my body. I don’t know how it is for you but when we buy a house, hey that’s pretty much all our savings that we pour into it. Well, were we about to come completely unstuck and lose everything? And the battle with city hall went on for over nine months before the whole thing was finally resolved.

Do you remember that sort of fear in your place; that fear that grips every cell of your body? Maybe it was during a time when one of your children was gravely ill. Perhaps you’ve travelled through divorces, so many people have and you know the fear of the uncertainty of your future.

The terrible thing about fear aside from how it makes us feel is that it’s totally debilitating. It does one of two things, either it causes us to lash out and do stupid things, things that aren’t in our best interest, things that are only going to make things worse instead of better.

Or the other thing that fear does is that it makes us freeze. It’s as though we’re totally immobilised, incapable of thinking straight, incapable of taking any actions that are going to make things better and keep us safe. Like the proverbial rabbit on the road at night, caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, it freezes. Unless it moves quickly it’s going to get run over.

Over the last little while on the program we’ve been talking about how to live an extraordinary life in a series of messages that I’ve called, ‘The Art of Living’.

You see my theory is this: we only have one crack at life here on this earth. We can either waste that life completely or we can live a mediocre life that never really amounts to much, that never impacts other people’s lives, that’s what most people seem to do or we can live an extraordinary life. Part of living that extraordinary life is knowing how to get through fear, how to deal with fear and cope with fear because it doesn’t matter who you are, what your position or your status or your wealth is, you are going to experience fear at some point in your life.

Now I’m a very strong person emotionally, it’s the way I’m wired, my personality type has some down sides but one of my upsides is that I’m strong but still there are times when I’m afraid and the only place where I’ve been able to deal effectively with that fear, the only place where I’ve been able to discover the peace in the middle of a storm is in God Himself. Have a listen to what God has to say about fear, Isaiah chapter 41, verse 10:

Don’t be afraid, I am with you. Don’t be afraid, I’m your God. I’ll strengthen you, I’ll help you, I’ll uphold you with my victorious right hand.

This God who sent Jesus His Son to suffer and die for you and me is a God who loves us and a God who doesn’t want us to be afraid and the truly awesome thing about that is that we only really discover the power of that love when we’re afraid.

I have no idea where you are in your life. It may be that you simply don’t believe in this God, and okay, that is completely your decision. I’m not here to ram anything down anyone’s throat but what I’ve discovered in my experience is that it doesn’t matter how fearful I am, it doesn’t matter how overwhelming my circumstances are, this same God of whom I speak is prepared to step into our space, to walk with us and to be with us and to protect us and to provide for us.

I don’t care what it is, a tsunami, an earthquake, God is right there in the middle of all of that. Psalm 46 from the Old Testament beginning at verse 1:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in the time of trouble. Therefore we will not be afraid even if the earth should change, even if the mountains shake in the heart of the sea, though the waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with this tumult we will not be afraid.

And it doesn’t matter which way you look at that, what angle you come at it from, that is such good news, it’s great news, it’s fantastic news and the only way to discover whether it’s true or not is to try it next time you’re afraid. To pray, to commit your situation into Gods hands and wait for Him and see what He’s going to do. You know what? There is absolutely no other way to find out if it’s true or not.

Someone once asked me, “but Berni is it the right thing for me to do, to in a sense just assume that God wants to help me, to rely on God in this way? Isn’t it wrong just to expect God to show up when I’m afraid? Maybe He wants me to be afraid, maybe He’s too busy, maybe… Am I being presumptuous?”

I can kind of understand but my answer is “absolutely it’s the right thing to do”. Listen to a few Scriptures here, Joshua chapter 1, verse 9. God says:

I hereby command you, be strong and courageous, don’t be frightened, don’t be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

Psalm 23, verse 4:

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will not be afraid for you are with me.

Romans chapter 8, verse 15:

You didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear; you have received a spirit of adoption as children by whom we cry ‘Abba – Father’.

Hebrews chapter 4, verse 16:

Therefore come boldly before the throne of grace so that you may receive mercy and grace in the time of your need.

And so it goes on. Friend, that’s just a handful of Scriptures, just a smattering of the many, many passages in Gods Word where He tells us that He wants us to boldly and confidentially rely on Him.

I’m really conscious that right now that someone might be listening who is travelling through a difficult time. Can I say to you, God has not given you a spirit of fear but a spirit of love and of power and of a sound mind so that you can confidentially say, “The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid, what can anyone do to me?”