We all want to be blessed. Sure we do – problem is, sometimes we have a bad sense of direction We expect all the blessing to flow in one direction – inwards, to us. Hmm. That’s not how it works.

Asset or Liability

The other day on twitter, I picked up this quote from Dr Tayo Adeyemi in the UK (not sure if I’ve pronounced his surname correctly there) anyhow this quote really caught my eye. This is what he said:

You are either a blessing or a burden; an asset or a liability; a problem solver or a problem. Your choice!

I started going through all the people I know, people I’ve worked with, friends, colleagues and you know something, it was really easy to categorise them either on one side of that ledger or the other. Let’s stick with the accounting metaphor. They’re either an Asset or Liability? Hmm … I’m imagining that if you went through the same exercise, you’d find exactly the same thing.

Of course, nobody is a complete liability, nor is anyone perfect. I mean, none of us are. We all contribute to some extent, and we all drain to some extent as well. That’s because firstly, none of us is perfect and secondly, we’re all good at different things. But even taking all those things into consideration, on balance, weighing all their pros and cons – some people overall are an asset, others are liability. Some are a blessing, others are a burden. Some are problem solvers, and some are, plain and simple, part of the problem!

So then … then I began to imagine a world in which more of us become assets than liabilities. In which more of us become more of a blessing than a burden. Just imagine how different this world would be if that started to happen. You and I aren’t necessarily in a position to change the world. We can’t change every one of the 7-point-something billion people on the planet. Hey, we can’t even change our wives or our husbands or our children.

But there is one person we can change. Ourselves. You can change you. I can change me. I wonder if you consider yourself for a moment, on balance – are you a blessing or a burden? An asset or a liability? A problem solver … or a problem?

We have to be kind of careful in answering that question. Because if the truth be known, we’re a lot more generous in judging ourselves, than we are in judging other people. We’re pretty good at rationalising our weaknesses, our failures and our blind spots. We trivialise them. We sweep the under the carpet. So if I asked those close to you – your family members, your work colleagues – whether you are on this side of the ledger or that, how would they answer?

The Apostle Paul was sitting on death row in a Roman dungeon when he wrote a letter to his friends in a place called Philippi. This is one of the things he said to them. Philippians Chapter 2 verses 3 and 4:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

This is an encouragement, to be a blessing instead of a burden. If we’re expecting everybody to do things for us, to look out for our interests, to meet our needs, and yet we don’t do the same for them – because all we care about is our interests and not them … well, you know what you call that, that’s being a hypocrite. This thing – call it what you will, selfishness, self–centeredness, whatever – there’s some of that in each one of us. See how Paul starts out, he says to his friends, and to you and me – do nothing, nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.

Imagine a sea, a land locked sea like the Dead Sea for instance, where all the rivers flow in, but none of them flow out. That’s exactly what happens with the Dead Sea. The only way the water gets out is through evaporation by the heat of the sun. And the reason it’s called the Dead Sea is because there’s so much salt in it because all the water flows in and never out, that nothing, not a single organism pretty much – can live in its water. It’s a Dead Sea. Our selfishness is like the Dead Sea. We want everything to flow inward towards us, we want others to be a blessing to us, we want circumstances to favour us, we want, we want, we want … It’s all about the direction of the flow of the blessing.

Many a man’s life, many a woman’s life, writes a man S.D Gordon a few hundred years ago, is like the circumference of that Dead Sea. When everything flows inwards … it becomes dead. And by experience you and I know that that’s true. Hey, I’m someone who spent the first half of his life trying to live that way and I wondered why nothing could ever satisfy me and why I was never truly happy and contented. The Apostle Paul addresses both sides of this equation in that short passage we just read.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but instead … look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

In other words, stop living your life trying to be blessed all the time, and start blessing others. Turn the direction of the flow from inwards, to outwards. Just think about the mentality we have about blessing. Everything flows into me and then I spend the blessing, a bit like the water evaporating out of the Dead Sea. And then what’s left is this muck and this salt in which nothing can live.

It’s the same when we want blessing to flow inwards to us and we spend that blessing, we do whatever we think we should do with it and what’s left is this empty dead feeling because that thing that we spent money on, that holiday, whatever it was, just didn’t satisfy us. That’s why S.D. Gordon said, “Many a man’s life and many a women’s life is like the circumference of that Dead Sea.”

Now, as evidence of the fact that what Paul is saying here of looking not to your own interest but to the interest of others actually works, he goes on with the prime example, the most obvious example of all. He goes on in the very next breath to site what Jesus did. I’m reading from the message translation here (Philippians 2:5–11):

Think of yourselves the way Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honoured him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honour of God the Father.

In other words, the answer is in being a blessing instead of a burden, an asset instead of being a liability, a problem solver, instead of being a problem. It’s about a complete, fundamental, 180-degree change in direction from having blessing flowing inward, to, like Jesus, letting the blessing flow outward through us no matter what it may cost us. There’s a lot in that, so we’re going to spend some more time after the break chatting about that very thing. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with that quote again, for you to ponder:

You are either a blessing or a burden; an asset or a liability; a problem solver or a problem. Your choice!

A Change of Direction

It turns out that the direction that we’re travelling in really matters. The first time I used a satellite navigation system in a car was one dark, wet and stormy night when I had to drive from London up into the midlands in the UK. It’s about a 3-hour drive, give or take. I had absolutely no idea how to get there. But the friendly woman at the hire car place at Heathrow Airport punched my destination address into the Satnav unit in the car. She told me how to use it and off I went. Now the British are pretty clever in this regard. They have rather long postcodes, which define not only the town, but also the street and street number. So all she had to do was to punch the number into the satnav and hey, presto, I was on my way. Great stuff!

But about an hour and a half into the trip I started to get really worried. What if she’d punched in just one wrong number? It’s the first time I’d driven in England – it was dark, it was wet – I had really no sense of direction, I really didn’t know where I was headed. I was relying completely on this satellite navigation. This clever, efficient little unit could well be taking me to a completely different part of the country if the women had punched in the wrong number. I remember when that thought hit me – I had a bit of a panic attack thinking, “what if I end up in completely the opposite side of the country?” So I pulled over, stopped, checked and yep, fortunately that woman at the car hire place had indeed punched the right numbers into the Satnav.

When you think about it, we make the choices we make in life, we head in the direction that we head in life, based rather a lot on the way in which we’re programmed to function.

Our parents, our teachers, our experiences, our own selfishness, capitalism, desires … all those things somehow, little by little, imperceptibly end up putting us on a certain road heading in a certain direction. And when we come to an intersection in life, a roundabout, a fork in the road – we choose, based on … what? Turns out we’re a bit like that clever little satnav unit in my car, we choose based on how we’ve been programmed over the course of our lives thus far.

So … what if we’ve been programmed incorrectly and what if we’re heading in the wrong direction? Have you ever thought about that? Well – there’s a very obvious consequence if you are heading in the wrong direction. If you’re heading in the wrong direction in your life, you aren’t going to arrive at the place that you were expecting to arrive at, that you were hoping to arrive at, that you were wanting to arrive at.

This week on the program we’re asking the question – each one of us – am I a blessing or a burden, am I an asset or a liability, am I a problem solver … or a problem? And a lot of it has to do with the direction that we’re headed in.

Not just a slight shift for most of us, but a profound, radical 180-degree change in direction. Whatever you may think of Him, this man Jesus a couple of thousand years ago said some really profound things. One of them was this:

It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Just a few small words, but in them is the power to make that 180-degree shift. And that is not an easy one to make. We all know that turning a big ship around from heading north to heading south, isn’t something you do in a few hundred yards or metres. If a big ship is powering ahead heading north, it can take miles for it to slow down, turn around and head south. Our lives are like that – because this idea that all the blessing flows inwards and then we’ll be happy is so seductive and powerful.

It’s been programmed into us, much like that address was on the satnav. The problem with this direction – the idea that blessings flow inwards – is that it doesn’t get us to where we want to be. We get to the destination and the sense of happiness and contentment and fulfilment that we were expecting by making ourselves the centre of the universe – just isn’t there.

I know that because I spent a lot of my life heading in that direction. And chances are that you know too, because you’ve tried it as well and it hasn’t worked. We want it to work, we really, really do, but wanting isn’t enough. Because it is a fundamental law of the universe that when we spend all our effort, time, money and talents trying to make ourselves happy, then we will never be happy.

It is more blessed to give than to receive.

In other words when we change the direction of the flow of blessing from inward to outward, that’s when we experience the happiness and contentment that we’ve been looking for. Any parent who has struggled and sacrificed to bring up children can tell you that. There is nothing more satisfying than when we’re able to use who we are and what we have to leave a lasting mark of love and encouragement and achievement on the heart of another. Blessing is awesome. If it flows out of us, we are indeed a blessing. If we want it always to flow into us – then we’re going to be a burden.

The Bible is replete with Scriptures that speak about this very thing. Yet scores of people are being robbed of the sheer delight and joy that comes when we bless others, because someone’s punched the wrong destination into them. 1 Peter 4:10:

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.

Galatians 5:13-14:

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’.

John 13:12-14

When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

That’s just a few of those Scriptures – there are lots more. And not because God wants to put us into servitude or slavery somehow, because He knows how we function – after all He made us this way and He wants to set us free. Freedom is when we use who we are and what we have to love others by serving them … and in doing that we discover that as all this blessing flows out of us from God and outwards to others … our heart light up with the joy that all along we’d been looking for. Hallelujah! Jesus was right – it really is more blessed to give than to receive. How come we didn’t think of that?

The Person Comes First

Have you ever woken up with that intention in your heart? Jumped out of bed to bless that really annoying person in your life? No – I didn’t think so. And what that tells us about ourselves, because most of us are like that, is that we’re far more concerned about ourselves than the other person. You may think that’s a little unfair. I mean after all this person drives you crazy. Most days it seems that they don’t have a single, redeeming feature. Why on earth would you want to bless them?

That’s our natural response. But emotion aside, if we choose to bless or not bless a person, based on their impact on us, then quite clearly we are more concerned about how their actions affect us, than we are about how we could help them. We’re putting ourselves first, and them last. Perhaps to protect ourselves, or maybe to punish them … but whatever the reason, the choice to withhold blessing from a person who annoys or hurts us is based on us, and not them.

We tend to judge people by how they look, how the speak, how they … smell frankly, what their status in society is, what they earn, where they live, what they drive, how they speak, how they act. We judge people based on our prejudices and their outward appearance. Put it that way and it’s a bit scary. I’m trying to imagine here for a moment, if my parents had judged me that way when I was growing up and being a difficult teenager, I’d have been in a lot of trouble. Looking back on it with the wisdom that comes with years, I must have been a difficult teenage. I was a tough nut. Strong. Smart. Quick. And very, very self-centred.

And to be sure my mother and father did get annoyed with me from time to time and angry with me from time to time and sometimes they had to punish me. That’s the way it ought to be. But overall, they didn’t stop blessing me. They didn’t stop loving me. They didn’t stop wanting the best for me.

Now if we know this as parents – why don’t we know it as wives and husbands. Why don’t we know it as brothers and sisters? Why don’t we know it as work colleagues and friends? Hmm? I’ll tell you why? Because somehow along the way we’ve been programmed to look after number one – ourselves. I’ll look after me; you’ll look after you. Come on – it’s true isn’t it? So let’s get back to our natural response in dealing with those difficult people in our lives. And let me ask you, how well is it actually working?

When you look at the conflict in your life, the conflict in families, neighbourhoods, suburbs, towns, villages, cities, between countries; when we look at the almost 50 wars raging around the planet today. When we look at how the poor and marginalised are faring. How well is our current approach working? You’d have to conclude – by any measure – not very well at all.

I wonder if there is a different way, a different plan – something totally different that we can try – in order to be a blessing rather than a burden, to be a problem solver rather than the problem.

You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, ‘Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you’.

I’m not a great student of history – but there’s one leader in my lifetime, one man who exemplifies this thing that Jesus is talking about. Nelson Mandela. A man who as the leader of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa spent 27 years in prison. And when he was released, instead of leading a violent purge of retribution against his former jailers and oppressors, Mandela presided over a period of healing and reconciliation in his country. Of course, South Africa has a long way to go – but if anyone can be said to have turned the other cheek, it would be Nelson Mandela.

My point is that his life bears testament to the truth of what Jesus is saying about turning the other cheek, going the extra mile. At the end of the day – love, service, sacrifice – these are the things that change the difficult people around us. They’re the only things that can change the difficult people around us.

The thing I’ve noticed about turning the other cheek, is that it rather hurts sometimes. Jesus wasn’t just talking figuratively there – he was talking about practical real things that happen. If someone hit me on one check, I’d want to punch their lights out, not turn the other one. If someone sued me for my coat, the last thing I’d want to do is to offer them my cloak as well.

So, why is Jesus telling us this stuff? Why is He coming at us with this totally counterintuitive, totally against-the-grain approach to dealing with the people who drive us nuts?

Here’s why – because it’s the only way you’ll ever change them. When we respond to someone in love, with practical love – love that serves them, love that accepts them, love that affirms them – when they know that they don’t deserve the love that we’re giving, when we do that to them time and time again, it’s going to have an impact on them. Eventually, they’re going to ask the question – hang on a minute, why is this person treating me the way they are. Why are they giving me what I don’t deserve?

How can they have that sort of strength? And the answer we’re going to be able to share with them then is – “well, I had a listen to what that Jesus guy said. And it’s hard some days. But it makes sense.”

Love is the only thing that will change the world. And when we love people who don’t deserve it, you know what we’re telling them? We’re saying you are more important to me than how you behave. You are more important to me than the hurt that you cause me. You are more important to me.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that there is any more powerful way of reaching a person, of communicating with them, than with practical love which they simply don’t deserve. That sort of love has a way of getting through to even the hardest heart. It’s about showing mercy and giving grace.

When you think about it, mercy is withholding from a person the thing that they do deserve, the punishment. And grace is giving them the love that they don’t deserve. And it turns out – this stuff really works.

My friend, I want to encourage you to look at the difficult people in your life, the people who are hurting you, the people who are causing you angst, and go and love those people. Maybe there’s just one of them. Go and love that one person with the same love with which Jesus loves you.

God made each one of us not only to be blessed by Him, but to be a blessing – the entry point of His blessing into the lives of people around us. And one of the ways we can do that, is by being a safety net for people, when they really need it.

Compensating for Error

People’s mistakes can be so annoying. Especially, let me say, when they make the same mistakes over and over and over again – which we all do. Now you might protest and say – I don’t make the same mistakes over and over and over again! And my response to you would be, “Sure you do. We all do.”

Here’s why. There are something things that you’re naturally good at and some that you aren’t. There are some things that the next guy is naturally good and some that he isn’t. So – there you are, the two of you – good at different things, bad at different things.

You see the mistakes he makes at the things you’re good at and you say to yourself, “How can that guy keep making the same mistake? It’s so obvious.” And right while you’re thinking that, he’s thinking exactly the same about you.

My friend Keith is a great encourager. The sort of person you really enjoy spending an hour or two with over lunch; you come away feeling much better about yourself. He recently sent me a document that we’d both been working on. It was an 18-page contract that I had developed meticulously with some lawyers. He’d made a few changes, but did he turn on the word processor’s change control feature so I could see what changes he’d made? Nooooo!

I was about to get annoyed – and then I remembered … hang on a minute this is Keith we’re talking about here. He’s a great encourager, but when it comes to technology and admin and all that stuff, he’s a dead loss. It’s the way that he is. And he’s never going to change. I can’t do what he does, he can’t do what I do – and that’s the way it was always meant to be. And so I am at that point confronted with exactly the same question that I hit you with at the top of the program. Am I going to criticise him, or am I going to help him? Which one will it be?

It’s a question that confronts us at least a few times every day. Think of all the people you’ve been annoyed with over the last 24 hours. What was the source of the annoyance? How did you respond? Did you criticise them … or help them?

The series of messages we’re in right at the moment is called “Are You a Blessing or a Burden?” inspired by a great quote from Dr Tayo Adeyemi in the UK. He said:

You are either a blessing or a burden; an asset or a liability; a problem solver or a problem. Your choice!

And so we’re on a bit of a journey to discover some practical, rubber hits the road kind of things that you and I can do to be more of a blessing than a burden, to be more a part of the solution than the problem, to be a contributor rather than someone who keeps on taking.

And this is a really practical thing that we can do. When someone makes a mistake, we can stuff our pride back in our pockets and choose to help them instead of criticising them. And when you think about it – as much as it may be counterintuitive to start with – it actually makes an enormous amount of sense, both for them and for us.

Going to read a short passage to you from the Old Testament – a book written around three thousand years ago called the Book of Ecclesiastes. It’s purported to have been written by one of the wisest men who has ever lived, King Solomon of Israel. We’re looking at Ecclesiastes 4:9-12:

Two people are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone? And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one. A threefold cord is not quickly broken.

I was sharing this with people once and I did it visually. I had 2 people hold a single rope tight and then I cut it in the middle. Of course, at that point that one rope failed. Then we took two ropes, we wound them around each other and around and around and around – and then I cut one rope on the right, the other rope in the middle and the first rope on the left.

The ropes pretty much hung together, although the whole structure was weakened, because what had happened was that as the second rope had wrapped around the first, they compensated for the one another in the places where the other one was cut.

Then we took three ropes and platted them together as a woman would plat her hair. I cut each of the 3 ropes in 2 different places. And you know what.  Pull as hard as you like – the ropes didn’t fail. I could actually sit on them without them coming apart.

That’s the picture here – you and I have the capacity to compensate for the failures and weaknesses of others. And because we’re all different, we’re all strong in different places and weak in different places. When we’re bound together in a relationship, as a team, we compensate for one another just as those ropes did. I cleaned up the mess with the contract that Keith couldn’t do and you know what, he encourages other members of our team in a way that I can’t do.

And that’s how it’s meant to work. That’s exactly how it’s meant to work. And the beauty of that – the reason that it makes so much sense, is that together, in a mutually supportive relationship, in a team, 2, 3, 4 …. 10 people can achieve so much more. Some teams don’t achieve anything, because they’re always fighting with each other and criticising each other, and pointing the finger at each other.

If we want to be a blessing rather than a burden, an asset rather than a liability, part of the solution rather than part of the problem – there are two parts of that. The first, is bringing our particular skills and abilities to the table – with energy and gusto, and vigour, with hard work and dedication. That’s the first part.  But the second part is where we often fall down.

The second part is having the wisdom and humility to use our skills and abilities to compensate for the weaknesses of others.  If we each have that level of wisdom and maturity, then our team, our relationship – is completely unstoppable. We’ll achieve amazing things together if only we can learn to compensate instead of criticising.

See, serving someone takes humility. A much-underrated attribute these days is humility. Humility is about laying aside what we think we’re entitled to and pitching in and serving anyway. Humility is serving people even when in our superior judgement they don’t deserve it.

Humility is rising about the petty bickering, the point scoring, and the recognition and reward seeking, and just getting on with things to achieve the aim.

Humility is shutting your mouth when you feel like complaining, when others around you are behaving like two-year olds, and by the goodness of your example, by your faithfulness, by your quiet assurance showing people the way forward. That’s humility. And it takes a strong, and mature, and wise person to live out that sort of humility. The best leaders are the humble ones, aren’t they?! 1 Pet 5:5:

And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

That’s powerful stuff. We often think when we read things like that in God’s Word – that it’s meant for someone else.  You know who this is meant for today? It’s meant for me today. It’s meant for you today. It’s meant for us to take it to heart – listen to it again:

And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Take that to heart: “God opposes the proud”. Is it really the way we want to live, to live in a way that God, with all His power and all His might, is going to oppose us? But on the other hand, He gives grace to the humble.

Humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God – that’s how we become more of a burden than a blessing, more of an asset than a liability … And more of a solution than part of the problem.

This is exactly how we do that stuff. Do you see how practical God’s Word is here? God is about making us a blessing so that His blessing flows through us out into the world, out into the lives of the people around us.

What You Say Behind Their Back

One of my favourite television shows of all time, is “Yes Prime Minister”. It’s a very, very funny show about the behind the scenes wheeling and dealing that goes on in politics. One of the key characters is the very smart and conniving senior civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby.

In one episode called “A Conflict of Interest”, the Prime Minister wants to appoint a new Governor of the Bank of England to clean up the financial scandals happening in the banking sector. He settles on a man with a great reputation for honesty and integrity. Someone who is fearless in tackling corruption.

The junior and inexperienced civil servant, Bernard Wooley, arrives at the Cabinet Office and relays the PM’s message. He tells Sir Humphrey that the PM is keen to appoint this man, Jameson, to the governorship. Sir Humphrey indicates that his appointment would be “appalling” and it is his firm intention to change the PM’s mind.

He gives young Bernard a quick lesson on how to achieve this: express full support for the candidate (i.e. Jameson), pointing out all his qualities, but over-praising him to the point that the P.M. will be concerned since it could undermine his own perceived qualities. As Sir Humphrey points out, “It is necessary, Bernard, to get behind someone before you can stab them in the back.”

It’s a great line isn’t it? You have to get behind someone before you can stab them in the back. And as things turn out, it’s something that Sir Humphrey does extremely successfully.

It’s great to laugh at the idea in a sitcom, but have you ever been “stabbed in the back”. Have you ever had someone praise you and then go behind your back and undermine you? It’s not very nice is it. In fact, it can be devastating.  When you know that people are whispering and muttering about you behind your back – it’s a terrible thing.

You see it all the time especially where those people who are doing the whispering and stabbing in the back have something to gain. In my 20 or so years as a consultant working in a few hundred different organisations, I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve seen this ruthless, back room knifing of people in the back, so that the person doing the back-stabbing can get his or her way, or climb up another rung of the corporate ladder.

In this series we’ve been chatting about how you and I can be a blessing rather than a burden to people. An asset rather than a liability A part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. I have to tell you, being the honest broker behind someone else’s back, dealing honestly and openly, defending people when they’re not there to defend themselves is one of the ways that we can be an incredible blessing.

I was once on a committee as the treasurer – my predecessor had handed me a terrible budget and so there wasn’t enough income to run the operations of this organisation. After a lot of hard work on the budget and the finances and reducing costs, I had to recommend to an annual general meeting a very substantial increase in the annual levy fees for members.

The following year I stepped off the committee, and some the new people on it, and apparently they wanted to blame me for the problem and run me down … behind my back. I wasn’t there, of course. But there was one woman – Sasha – who took them to task, confronted them about the unwarranted criticism, set the record straight, told them that I was the guy who had sorted the problem out, not created it.

It took quite some courage for her to do that, but she did. So let me ask you, how do you think I feel towards Sasha? It’s obvious isn’t it. As far as I’m concerned, she is very much a blessing to me rather than a burden. She has my trust and if she asked me for something, if I could do it I would make it happen.

There’s a proverb in the OT of the Bible that goes like this. Proverbs Chapter 19, verse 1:

Better is a poor person who walks with integrity than one who is crooked in speech and a fool.

The Bible talks about human plots and contentious tongues too in Psalm 31, verse 20. It’s horrible when people are like that isn’t it?

So here’s how you can be an incredible blessing to someone. Be like Sasha. When people are gossiping or running a person down when they’re not there, firstly, don’t be someone who throws fuel on the fire. Don’t nod passively or contribute to the gossip. To the contrary, pull people up – hang on a minute, that’s not quite fair. Not sure that we have all the circumstances straight here.

Did you happen to know that sometimes, people pull someone down, simply because of their natural weaknesses or limitations. Hey, we all have those right? Sometimes, they criticise someone, by twisting the facts. And sometimes they make fun of someone or find fault with them, when they’re going through a difficult time personally.

None of those things are right, are they? None of them are fair. If someone has wronged someone then the way to deal with it is face to face, one on one. Not by gossiping behind their back. Face to face takes courage, gossiping is gutless.

Defending someone when they’re not there to defend themselves is a huge blessing. Eventually, the person you defended … it’ll get back to them somehow and when it does, their trust in you, their admiration for you will grow immeasurably, as mine did for Sasha.

And those people whom you held to account for their gossip – they may not like it. In fact, they may start to gossip about you behind your back. But in their heart of hearts, they will have a newfound respect for you. They will know that you are someone of integrity, someone with courage, someone not to be messed with.

At the end of the day, people like someone who plays with a straight bat, someone whom they can depend on, someone who is honest, direct and open – even if they disagree with you. Again as another OT proverb says:

Righteous lips are the delight of a king, and he loves him who speaks what is right. (Proverbs 16:3)

God takes this stuff extremely seriously, just quietly. Number 9 in the ten commandments:

You shall not bear false witness against a neighbour. (Ex 20:16)

What we say about each other matters to God.

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbour? (James 4:11-12)

And God has a quite different way that He wants us to handle this; a different way that he wants us to behave – a way that doesn’t involve stabbing each other in the back, but instead, is about lifting each other up.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:31-32)

I have to tell you I look out for this sort of integrity in people. Gossip is a terrible thing. Demeaning people is a terrible thing. And one way that you and I can shine a light into some dark places and bless some people is to refuse to participate in gossip, and instead do what God’s calling us to do – be kind, be tender hearted and here’s the crunch for me – forgive people the way God’s forgiven us through Jesus Christ.

Jesus paid a price, a huge price, so that you and I could be forgiven. What an awesome thing it is to bring that forgiveness and goodness into the world through our behaviour. Will it cost us something sometimes? Absolutely it will. Standing up against gossip and slander and anger and wrath and bitterness is always going to cost us something.

But do you want to be a blessing rather than a burden? Here it is. Here’s one way.

The Joy of Blessing

Blessing is a word that Christians in particular use rather a lot. But I’m not sure that we really think about what it means. Now sure, we all want to be blessed – that’s when really good stuff happens to us, right? Do you know a single person on the planet who doesn’t want to be blessed? No – me neither. So we have this vague notion that blessing is a good thing – and I’ll have as much of that stuff as anybody will dish up to me.

Well, I guess that’s okay as far as it goes. But that Word “blessing” has a far more powerful meaning. I get a bit of a hint about this notion of blessing in my dictionary, which tells me that blessing is God’s favour and protection. Good, that’s true too.  But that simple definition doesn’t tell me under what circumstances I can receive that blessing … or indeed what part I have to play in making that blessing happen in other people’s lives.

A good many people believe that being blessed is a bit down to … well, the luck of the draw. Or how God may be feeling today, or whether we’re in His good books … or not. Would you agree? I’m not feeling very spiritual today, so I really don’t expect God to bless me. Is a pretty common sort of thought.

So what does God have to say about God’s blessing? That’s a pretty reasonable question to ask. Well – here it is – it’s powerful stuff:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 1:3)

Well, God tells us that He has already blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing – every blessing and it’s already done. It’s a done deal. And the word used here for “blessing” literally means to speak well of – so in effect, God has already and is already speaking the blessing of God over the lives of anyone who is in Christ, anyone who has put their trust in Jesus – God is speaking that blessing over them. And when God speaks, stuff happens.

That’s the power of the concept of a blessing – the blessing that comes from Jesus. Please don’t ever imagine that somehow, that God’s blessing is a hit and miss affair. Maybe … maybe God will bless me one day. No, He has already and is already blessing you and me and anyone else who believes in Jesus – with every – did you get that – every blessing in Christ. Powerful. And the next bit is just as powerful. Because God’s plan is for that blessing to flow out from us, through us – into the parched, dry lives of the people around us.

In effect you and I have been blessed in order to be a blessing. Have a listen to this, 1 John 3:16:

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.

In other words, just as the sacrifice that Jesus made for you and me on that Cross cost Him something – it cost Him hugely – and it caused every blessing to flow out into our life, in the same way God wants us to sacrificially get out there amongst it, amongst the people He’s plonked us right in the middle of, and go and be a blessing. We ought to lay down our lives for one another.

Because here’s how God works – listen carefully to this – His blessings flow from heaven to earth in two ways. Firstly, God’s blessings flow through the Presence of the Holy Spirit into the one who believes. The very Presence of God Himself – Father, Son and Spirit – brings a joy and a peace that is completely beyond understanding. There simply aren’t enough words in any language to describe the awesomeness of that blessing.

But secondly, He uses people like me to be the entry point of His blessing into other people’s lives. How often has God blessed you through the things that others have said and done? Hmm? A gazillion times, right? That’s why He wants us to be a blessing instead of a burden to people. That’s why God blesses us, not only so that we can be full of joy and power. Sure that’s great and that’s necessary, but also so that the joy and the power and the love and the grace and the mercy of God will flow through us into the hearts and the lives, the aching hearts, of the people around us.

There are three things about us which in a very practical way will determine whether we are more of an asset or a liability, more of a blessing than a burden. What are they? Our attitude, our anger and our anticipation for tomorrow.

Attitude

Can I ask you, do you enjoy being around people who are grumpy and upset all the time? Do you enjoy being part of a team where everyone’s downcast, when no one is at all positive about anything going on in their lives? None of us do, do we? It’s horrible when that happens.

I mean I remember being part of a sporting team once as a young man and we didn’t win a single game in the season. It got to the point where we’d go out onto the field believing, just knowing that we were going to lose and time and time again we would fulfil our expectation. No, it wasn’t a lot of fun at all.

Some people are a blessing and others are more of a burden. Some people are assets and others are more of a liability. Some people are problem solvers and others, well they’re just part of the problem and if you and I want to live the sort of life that’s this amazing life, the life that God’s planned for us, we need to be on the plus side of that equation not on the minus side. Would you agree?

So let me ask you, are you a glass half full kind of person or do you have a glass half empty perspective on life? Because perspective or the word that most people use, our attitude, has a lot to do with the sort of life we’re going to live. I love what it says in the Old Testament Book of Proverbs chapter 17, verse 22. It says:

A cheerful heart is good medicine but a down cast spirit dries up the bones.

I like being around cheerful people. Cheerful people have a sense of contentment and joy, they’re not always looking for the problems that might be just around the next corner. Cheerful people are the people who have their faith and their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. They’re the sort of people that we love to be around.

I once worked with a man, he was a good few years older than me and he was always looking forward to the next thing, he was always anticipating something good. Okay sometimes good things would happen and sometimes they didn’t happen and sometimes days were lousy but that didn’t seem to deter him. He was always looking for the next good thing.

This guy was definitely a glass half full sort of person, he was realistic, he was practical but he was very cheerful. I learnt a lot from working with him, in fact he has had more of an impact on my life than almost anyone else. We worked together for a good twenty years as business partners, friends and him as my mentor, teaching me not only his skills but his outlook on life. What a great guy to be around.

Conversely there was another man in our company, also a few years my senior, who never saw any good in anything and I think the second part of that Proverb I just read out to you is totally about this guy. Have a listen to it again:

A cheerful heart is good medicine but a down cast spirit dries up the bones.

Is there anything more desolate, more life draining, than the picture of dry bones? It speaks of a complete absence of life. Not even the birds come to pick off the flesh off the dry bones because there’s none left – nothing of sustenance, no life.

People like that drain the life out of themselves and out of the people around them. The problem is some people and you may well be one of them, do have that sort of outlook on life, seeing that the glass is always half empty instead of noticing that it’s half full. It’s kind of a way of life for them. Those people are more of a liability than an asset. I’m just being direct and honest.

We all go through negativity at times so whether it’s a now or then thing or a whole way of life for you I want to encourage you today to change your outlook. I used to be quite a negative person because things never satisfied me. One of my biggest things that impacted my life is working closely with that business partner of mine that I mentioned earlier and picking up his experience and his positive outlook and perspectives on life.

Even on the difficult things we travelled through together. See being happy, being contented, looking for the good in every circumstance and every situation isn’t some goal that we should aspire to, being cheerful and positive most of the time actually works, it makes for a much better life. Listen:

A cheerful heart is good medicine but a down cast spirit dries up the bones.

See it’s that blessing or burden, asset or liability, problem solver or problem thing again. Is you countenance, you outlook, your heart attitude good medicine to the people around you? Or do you dry up their bones? Do you sap the life out them?

It’s time to take a good hard look in the mirror and if you don’t like what you’re seeing then it’s time to do something about it. And allow me to let you in on a little secret here because the contentment that I feel, the cheerfulness that I have in my heart which is I guess most of the time, 80%, 90% of the time, isn’t something I’m able to rustle up on my own on a daily basis because my circumstances don’t always give me call for celebration.

Some days, quite frankly, are really tough. The source of my cheerfulness is God Himself through His mighty promise that Jesus made to His disciples, John chapter 16, verse 33. Listen to this. The disciples were afraid, Jesus was about to be crucified, the whole world for them was falling apart, listen to what Jesus says to those men at that point in time.

All these things I’ve been telling you in this time of fear, Jesus said, I’ve said to you so that you might have peace because in this world you are going to have tribulation, that’s a promise but be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.

Jesus, more than any man who has ever walked this earth, understands trial and sorrow. Back in the Book of Isaiah it describes Him as a man of suffering, a man acquainted with infirmity, a man from whom others would hide their face, a man who is despised, a man who people held of no account, Isaiah chapter 53, verse 3.

And yet Jesus overcame the world, He died for my sin and yours, He rose again so that you and I could have a fresh and new and awesome and abundant life here on this earth and for all eternity. That’s the big picture, that’s the reality, that’s the powerful mighty truth that these days, informs my whole perspective on life.

Jesus rose again, that’s awesome! Yes, He did overcome this world and He did it for you, He did it for me. That’s what brings peace amidst the turmoil. That’s what brings good cheer amidst the tribulation. Not something I conjure up, not self-motivation, not self-help, not self-hype. Jesus plain and simple has overcome the world and given me a new start in life if I put my trust in Him and Jesus, plain and simple, has overcome the world for you to give you a new life if you put your trust in Him.

And I don’t care what comes against me, I don’t care how much people criticise me, I don’t care how much I stumble or fail, Jesus hasn’t fallen off His twig, Jesus promises haven’t failed. If we put our trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord, as our saviour, as our king, as our friend, as our guide, as our comforter, He will never ever fail us.

I’ve searched far and wide, I’ve left no stone unturned but I have never found that good cheer that Jesus spoke about, that joy in the face of pressure and trial and tribulation anywhere else. Yes, God used other people like my business partner in my life to show it to me, but He and He alone is the source of that joy, He and He alone is the one who gives me a cheerful heart and that cheerful heart is good medicine indeed. It’s good medicine for me and its good medicine for the people around me. Come on the answer is Jesus Christ.

Anger

If you’ve ever been bullied, you’ll know what an awful feeling it is. In fact, it’s not something confined to the school yard, bullying happens amongst adults too. I’ve seen husbands bullying their wives, wives bullying their husbands, bosses bullying their employees, workers bullying their co-workers.

Have you ever been on the wrong end of the bullying equation? It isn’t a lot of fun. Some personality types like mine for instance are more prone to be bullies than others but we all have a bit of it in us. The idea of rolling over the top of other people to get to where we’re going, to get what we want out of a situation.

So far in this series we’ve been chatting about what it means to be more of a blessing than a burden, more of an asset than a liability, more of a problem solver than part of the problem and I guess the way we’ve been tackling that is through some of the awesome wisdom, God’s wisdom in the Old Testament Book of Proverbs.

When it comes to this whole bullying thing there’s a great one, there’s a great Proverb, it’s so plain and simple and obvious, have a listen, God says:

Do not quarrel with anyone without cause, when no harm has been done to you.

In fact, it’s so plain and so simple and so blindingly glimpsingly obvious you have to ask yourself, hang on what bit about this don’t we get? Why is it that we have to try and pick fights with people? You know someone says something or does something that we don’t quite like or perhaps they look at us the wrong way and we’re off, off we go, we just have to say something, we just have to pick a fight.

You know this is really, really easy to do in a marriage. If one of you is meticulously tidy and organised which is me in our marriage, and the other’s more relaxed and easy going, that’s my wife, it can be on for young and old.

See the meticulous tidy people simply cannot begin to understand how someone could possibly leave something lying out of place and speaking from experience here what you really want to do is you want to say something, why did you leave that out? Why didn’t you put it away?

Well that’s okay the first couple of times in a marriage but when you’ve been married for twenty years it kind of grates on the other person, do you think? And here’s the really crazy thing, I’m using myself as a bad example here, see no mans a total loss, you can always use him as a bad example.

When you decide you just have to say something about this thing that they left out of place you think to yourself, ‘I’m totally justified, this isn’t some irrelevant quarrel without any cause, it’s justified because she didn’t put the knife back in the drawer.

How often in your life have you had a stupid quarrel like that without cause and it turns into a full-blown fight? That’s no better than the young kid when I was at school who stalked me for a fight when I was thirteen years old. Was any harm done? No. So there was really no cause was there? Listen to God’s advice again, God’s truth, God’s powerful truth.

Do not quarrel with anyone without cause, when no harm has been done to you.

Imagine you have one of those stupid ridiculous arguments and then your wife heads out the door to pick up one of the children from school and she’s in a car accident and she dies. Now that really puts the stupidity of the argument into perspective doesn’t it?

If we each were to count the number of times we open our mouths to say something that we know is going to inflame the situation in response to something that really, really didn’t cause a problem at all, we might be surprised how often we do that.

Is it a blessing to others when we live our lives proactively picking a fight? No, but it seems we still can’t help ourselves. Did you miss it? Here it is again just in case it didn’t sink in the first few times.

Do not quarrel with anyone without cause, when no harm has been done to you.

And let me say even when there is a valid cause, even when someone does do something that hurts, even then it’s much often easier not to say anything. It takes great wisdom and maturity and strength not to say anything when someone’s wronged us.

I’ve decided I want to be more of a blessing to my wife than a burden so these days, although some days I still struggle I admit, these days I try to keep my mouth shut. There’s another Proverb that I love when it comes to stirring up strife, Proverbs chapter 10, verse 12:

Hatred stirs up strife but love covers all offences.

Love covers a multitude of sins. Sometimes I can be an ass, sometimes I get things wrong but when instead of people arguing with me and criticise me they cut me some slack. They gently guide me and encourage me in the right direction. Hey, those people are a blessing to me and it strikes me, you know what I can do that, I could be a blessing to other people in the same way.

And while I think of it that’s precisely the heart of the true blessing of that grizzly cross that Jesus was nailed to. To get him crucified the religious lynch mob had to shop around to find someone to convict Him. Under Roman rule you couldn’t just go and kill someone, that would be murder.

No some court had to convict Him so the Pharisee’s shopped around which is why Jesus was tried seven times between when He was arrested and when He was crucified. What defence did Jesus offer for Himself? How did He justify and defend Himself? Have a listen, Matthew chapter 27, verses 11 to 13:

Jesus stood before the governor. The governor said, ‘are you the king of the Jews?’ And Jesus said, ‘well you say so’. But when he was accused by the Chief Priests and the elders he didn’t answer. Then Pilate said to him, ‘do you not hear how many accusations they’re making against you?’ But Jesus gave no answer, not even to a single charge so that the governor was greatly amazed.

In this case Jesus was in the right and this wasn’t a trivial thing His life was a stake here. It was either a pardon or a crucifixion. He chose not to defend Himself. He chose not to justify Himself, not to demonstrate as He well could have that He was in the right. Jesus chose to be a blessing and not to quarrel even though He had a great cause and even though the loss was going to cost Him His life.

My friend it’s that example that He’s calling us to follow as we willingly submit our lives to Him. He’s not asking us to do something He wouldn’t do, remember He’s been there and He is a blessing to you and to me.

Anticipation

If each one of us in our family or our community or our country was just a little bit more of a blessing to others than we are today, imagine what a different world we’d be living in. It completely boggles the mind. So that’s what this series is all about and today we’re chatting about some of the things that we can do to be a blessing.

And one of the things that we can do is to have hope in our heart. I had a quick look at hope in my dictionary and it defines hope as a feeling or expectation for a particular thing to happen. Now I guess by definition that thing that we’re hoping for is a good thing, none of us hopes for bad things, we’re always hoping for a good thing to happen. That this will get better, that that will get better. We hope it won’t rain tomorrow because it’s washing day.

If we run into someone who’s hopeful about tomorrow by and large those people are great people to be around because their hope is infectious and let’s face it there are lots worse things that you can catch from someone else than their hope – expectation of good for tomorrow.

Now over these last few weeks we’ve been discovering how we can be more of a blessing through the Book in the Old Testament in the Bible called Proverbs, which, far from being a stuffy old irrelevant theological text, is this kind of living breathing vibrant collection of God’s wisdom that is intensely relevant to our lives here and now. So have a listen to this one, Proverbs chapter 12, verse 12. It says:

Hope deferred makes the heart sick but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

One of the scariest things that I’ve noticed about myself is that if I lose hope in a particular situation, if I give up on believing that something good is going to happen then what I do is I start behaving as though it won’t happen. And by behaving as though it won’t happen it pretty much becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I go about thinking and saying and doing things that will stop the good thing that I’m hoping for from happening. I don’t do the things that I need to do to get that good thing to happen. So listen again to this Proverb very, very carefully.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

The thing that makes your heart sick according to this Proverb is deferring hope. Another way of saying that is giving up hope. Of course not everything we hope for in life is going to happen. I remember once my daughter who’s a very gifted and skilled beauty therapist was really hoping for a particular job.

She submitted her application, her resume, she so wanted this job. They didn’t even call her back and yet a little while later she landed a much better job. Things don’t always work out the way we want them to but when we give up hope our heart becomes sick.

And let me tell you, a person gripped by hopelessness which is the opposite of hope, is a very sad and sick and sorry person indeed and that person simply is not going to be a blessing to others. On the other hand, the one who’s heart is filled with hope, someone who lives their lives, who thinks and says and does the things that demonstrates the hope that’s within them, that person is very much like a tree of life. It’s as though they give strength and hope and encouragement to the rest of us. Again, Proverbs chapter 23 and verse 18:

Surely there is a future and your hope will not be cut off.

Instead of imagining all the things that can go wrong and imagining they’re going to happen all at the same time, we can choose to hope in good, hope in the future, believe that good is just around the corner, that blessing is coming, the solution to our problems is coming, that everything is going to be okay.

Of course that’s easy for me to say in a nice clinical radio studio, it’s much harder to live out and to do when we’re confronted with some devastating news. There are so many times in my life when the things I’d hoped for didn’t in fact eventuate. In fact, sometimes when I was hoping things went from bad to worse. But I refused to give up hope in my life because when I defer my hope, when I set it aside my heart becomes sick. I’m no good to myself and I’m no good to anyone else.

Given a choice between hoping and not I’ll go with being filled with hope every time, it’s the only way to live life. It’s the only way to be a blessing to those around us and it’s the only way to make it through the dark days and we all have dark days in our lives.

A person filled with hope is an incredible blessing to those around them, really. Of course any talk of hope without talking about who or what we’re putting our hope in is futile. See if there’s no God then life is purely a series of coincidences and coincidence and chance is nothing to hope in.

For me, I don’t know how it is for you but for me hope only makes sense when it’s coupled with a thing called faith. The two go hand in hand. A psalmist once wrote, Psalm 39, verse 7:

And now O Lord for what do I wait for my hope is in you.

And that sums it up for me. My hope isn’t in a chance or in coincidence or how hard I can work or how clever I am, my hope is in God and that’s why I pray because when I do my trust in God grows. As the Apostle Paul wrote more than a thousand years after Solomon wrote all those Proverbs:

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation and be constant in prayer. (Romans chapter 13, verse 12)

Isn’t that awesome? I’m able to rejoice in hope because my hope is in God and mark this, the word that Paul uses that sits aback of the English word hope doesn’t mean a chance kind of hope, it literally means a certain hope and that certain hope is what keeps my heart patient in tribulation and I know for a fact that it’s only through constant prayer, daily time quietly with God, that I lay hold of that rejoicing, that hope and that patience that God has for me.

And the truly awesome thing about all that is this, God is worthy of our trust and our hoping in Him, God is faithful, whatever He brings He’s faithful to look after us and to hold us close.

Great is your faithfulness Lord unto me. Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed your hand has provided, great is your faithfulness Lord unto me.

That was written by a man who wrote Lamentations, it’s chapter 3 in the Old Testament, looking at the devastation over Israel when something bad happened and he had it right.

Great is your faithfulness Lord unto me.

God is worthy of our faith. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer and my prayer for you is that you will put your faith, your complete trust in the God who loves you and cares for you and will protect you and guide you and lead you in a way that we can’t even begin to imagine.

God wants us to be a blessing, not a burden mind you, a blessing to the people around us. And there are some amazing ways to be that blessing – none more amazing, than the blessing of grace.

Being a Team-Player

Now you don’t have to be an accomplished coach or player or tactician to figure out the team that’s in conflict is most unlikely to win the game. And while you may not be a member of a sporting team, there are plenty of other teams that we’re all members of. Our family; our workplace; our church; our social group; because as social beings, as social creatures we organise ourselves to work together to achieve some common goals (or outcomes) as a team, and that’s how it should be.

But sometimes, boys and girls, we don’t play that nicely together, do we? We behave a little like two-year-olds, fighting over a toy or competing for our mother’s attention, or arguing over who got more ice cream in their bowl than the next one. It’s true isn’t it? It’s amazing – the capacity that we supposedly mature adults have, when we get together, to behave like children; arguing, squabbling, comparing, competing … “He got more than me! That’s not fair! She didn’t play fair!” and on it goes.

Why does that happen? Well the more we have, the more we want to have, and the more individualistic (rather than collective or team-based) our perspective becomes. It’s quite a global trend, so now everybody’s clamouring for recognition; for reward; for attention; for position; for all those things that an individual want, over and above what the team needs. Politics can be a tough game, but when we take it into the workplace for instance, it gets very grubby very quickly.

I was talking to a young woman working for a large corporation the other day. She has a boss who isn’t really that much across the detail of the job, so every time there’s some problem, he calls her and asks her to fix it, even when she’s overseas on a holiday. But then, wait for this, this boss takes the success and sells it as his up the line to his superiors, as something that he himself did, without ever giving her the recognition that she deserves. I mean, she fixed the problem (again), and secondly, she did it in the middle of the night from another country while she was on holidays.

Backstabbing. Complaining. Griping. Disunity. Laziness. They’re all rife in the workplace, and they’re the signs of a dysfunctional team where the individuals are more interested in what they can get out of it, instead of what they can give to the team. How can you and I be a blessing in that environment? Easy. By being a team player. By taking a leap, whatever our position may or may not formally be – boss, worker, it doesn’t really matter – and bringing the team together.

About three thousand years ago, Israel has a king by the name of David. He wrote a lot of poetry and songs called Psalms. One of the Psalms he wrote was Psalm 133. It starts out like this in verse 1:

How very pleasant it is when we live together in unity, like brothers and sisters.

Hey, he got that one right. Unity is a lot more fun than disunity. You and I can decide, “whatever the politics other people are playing, however badly they’re behaving, I’m just going to be a team player. I’m going to get in there and not just do my best to get my bit of the puzzle done, but I’m going to work with others and help them to get theirs done as well. It’s not so much about me winning the game of politics; it’s about me contributing to the overall outcome.”

See, this is a heart decision that steps out of the competitive game of politics and focuses on the objective. It means not getting our way some of the time. It means supporting and encouraging other people and helping them to succeed. You see, this takes a lot of guts to do when there’s conflict all around.

As a consultant over a period of about twenty years, I’ve worked in over three hundred organisations (large and small, government and private, east and west); you name it, I’ve been there; and almost always, there was conflict. My mentor Graham taught me to be aware of the politics, but never to become part of the game; to be the honest broker, in every situation.

Have to tell you, as a consultant you’re tempted to play the politics because you can feather your own nest. You can get more work and more money, but Graham (who was our managing director of the consulting firm) insisted that we wouldn’t go down that path. I was really fortunate to benefit from his wisdom, ‘cos the outcome was that sometimes, we didn’t get as much consulting work as we may have on that job, but the firm under his leadership gained a reputation of being honest brokers – trustworthy, and hardworking. When we’d bid for new work, we gave existing clients as referees, and that’s what they told our prospective clients. That one thing, in the end, won us more business than just about anything else – the simple act of being a team player.

Whatever teams you’re involved in, remember it’s so much more fun when we play nicely together. How very pleasant it is when we live together in unity, like brothers and sisters. Come on. At the end of the day, most people will end up respecting you. Why? Because it’s an incredible blessing to have a true team player on your team, and those who don’t respect you? They were never worth it in the first place.

Being a team player is a huge blessing. That of course doesn’t mean that it’ll always be sweetness and light; a bed of roses; peaches and cream … Conflicts happen, but there’s an incredibly positive side of conflict if it’s handled the right way. Back to the wisdom of God through Proverbs 7:17:

Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens the wits of another.

In other words, when we do rub each other up the wrong way – which happens, it just does – then we can learn out of that conflict. When someone criticises us, we could learn something about them, and quite likely, something about us.

When someone sees something from a different perspective to us, and so they want to head off in way another direction, it may not be the right direction; we might still have to haul them back in, but it can spark a new idea. It can show us the creativity that they have in their hearts, that we could tap into, and it can tell us something about our own shortcomings and narrowness of view sometimes. Handling the conflict in the right way, respectfully, for the good of the team, for the good of the outcome, can be a huge part of being a team player.

Next time you find yourself in a team that’s in conflict, here’s the challenge. Here’s the encouragement. Here’s what God has to say in His Word. How very pleasant it is when we live together in unity, like brothers and sisters. You have the ability; you have the creativity; you have the heart to figure out how you can be the agent of teamwork – how what you do can bring the team together, rather than tearing the team apart. And if you’re one of God’s people, if you’ve got a heart and a passion for Jesus Christ, hey; this is one of the ways that you can shine His love and His light into the people’s lives around you.

Being a Peacemaker

Do you want to hear a shocking statistic about war? Way back in World War I, whilst many, many of the people were killed, only about 5% of the casualties were civilian non-combatants, but in the fifty or so wars going on at the moment, some 75% of the casualties are innocent civilians, and that kind of mirrors the conflict we experience in our lives. Because in a sense, the collateral damage of our arguments and our conflicts is something we don’t take into account.

We imagine a husband and wife fighting like cat and dog doesn’t really impact anyone else. Well, actually it does; it profoundly impacts their children. I remember being told once by a woman who’d left her husband, she thought that after all that, everything would be sweetness and light. But she said to me, “I just didn’t realise how many people would be so deeply affected by our separation,” and for her, it’s an affect that goes on still today many, many years later.

In a world full of imperfect people, conflict is inevitable. If each one of us were perfect, hey; there wouldn’t be any need for conflict; but we’re not, and so there is because when we’re impacted by someone else’s failings, what we need to do is to establish boundaries, and boundaries after all (physical, social, ethnic, religious, moral, emotional), boundaries are what warfare is all about. It happens on a macro-scale in wars between nations or ethnic groups, and it happens on a micro-scale in conflicts between individuals and small groups of people too.

See, it’s all about setting boundaries – claiming the prize, whatever that happens to look like. In short, conflict is about winning, and often, it has nothing to do with right and wrong – just winning. That’s pretty sad, especially if we think about the extent to which we behave that way. Proverbs 20:3:

It’s honourable to refrain from strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel.

We think sometimes that walking away from a fight is a sign of weakness, but actually, according to God’s Word, it’s a sign of honour and wisdom. The smartest way that you and I can make peace is putting an end to an argument before it even starts. Here it is again in Proverbs 17:14:

The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so stop before the quarrel breaks out.

Peace is an awesome thing, and when we know that we’re walking into a minefield, sometimes we need to proactively plan for peace. One of the things I do is I think about how things are likely to unfold. Maybe I know someone’s got a totally different view of the world to me, and I know they’re angry and they’re upset and there’s tension – whatever it is, so what I do is I assemble the facts in my mind; I go over them; I think them through, and then I think about the conflict that’s coming up, and I put deliberate plans into place to deal with the conflict. Maybe the first thing I need to do in this meeting is just let them blow off their steam. Then maybe I need to ask them some questions to find out what’s driving them; what’s motivating them, and then come up with some sensible solutions that meet their needs, but also head things in the right direction.

An army going into a military campaign plans its engagement with the enemy battle by battle. That makes a lot of sense, and so it also makes sense that any peacemaker going into a battle to make peace should plan how they’re going to achieve that peace. Here’s another brilliant piece of wisdom about being a peacemaker from Proverbs 12:20:

Deceit is in the heart of those who devise evil, but those who plan peace have joy.

So to do evil, to do battle, you have to plan it. See what it said? “Those who devise evil.” And to have peace, you have to plan that deliberately as well. Look at it. “Those who plan for peace.” Let’s read it again:

Deceit is in the heart of those who devise evil, but those who plan for peace have joy.

It’s true. When a truce is declared, when the war is over, there’s dancing in the streets; there’s dancing for joy, and that’s what being a peacemaker is all about. Is it scary sometimes? Sure it is! Do you end up in the firing line? Do people misunderstand your motives, when you go into a battle to be a peacemaker? My experience? All the time, but it’s worth it because when you’ve contributed through peace-making to the peace that’s breaking out, that is just the best feeling on this earth.

Where’s the conflict in your life right now? To what extent is that conflict being fuelled by your desire simply to win, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the conflict, and what could you do right now to bring about a lasting peace? I know this requires a lot of soul-searching. God didn’t say this was going to be easy. Letting go of deceit and devising evil and replacing it with planning for peace can be really hard. I know that sometimes making peace requires a huge sacrifice, but a good many of the things we end up in conflict over … Come on, they simply aren’t worth the effort.

So many trivial things tear people and relationships apart. What would our world look like, what would your world look like, if we were prepared to concede on the ones that don’t matter and find creative, neutrally beneficial and rewarding solutions to the conflicts that do matter? What would your world look like – your family, your relationships, your workplace, if you stood up with the courage to be a peacemaker?

Making peace doesn’t always mean caving in. Making peace is something that a wise person does by guiding a conflict to a good conclusion, and at the end of the day, people will look at that peacemaker and say, “What a blessing he or she was”, ‘cos deep-down, they seriously want some peace.

But there’s one more dimension to peace-making that we often overlook. It’s not just about being smart; see, there’s a spiritual dimension. God loves peace. God’s in the peace business. He’s in the reconciliation business. That’s why He sent Jesus to die for you and me, to end hostilities between Him and us. And Jesus said this about peacemakers – men and women with the courage to stick their necks out, to proactively make peace. He said (Matthew 5:9):

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.

That’s a pretty big statement, to be called the children of God. That’s saying that when we step up to being the peacemaker, we’re just like our Dad – our Father in heaven, who would spare not even the life of His Son, in order to bring a lasting peace. So God loves peace, and He wants to bring peace into our lives. How do we lay hold of that God-given peace? Here it is Proverbs 16:7:

When a man’s ways please the LORD, He makes even his enemies to be at peace.

We lay hold of God’s peace by honouring God. When a man’s ways please the LORD, God Himself makes even this man’s enemies to be at peace with him. Everything we are, and everything we have, and every hope and every dream when we’ve laid it at God’s feet, when we honour Him with our all, when we throw everything (the whole lot) into the ring, and honour God through our faith in Jesus Christ, through our thoughts and through our actions, God responds to that. God brings peace.

So much happens in the spiritual realm. So much of the conflict going on in our lives is the spiritual outworking of our sin; of our dishonouring God. Friend, sin has consequences, and one of those is conflict. I believe God wants us to lay hold of His peace ‘cos when we do, we become the ultimate peacemakers. When a man’s ways please the LORD, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

The Blessing of Grace

We can’t talk about being a team player and being a peacemaker and being more of a blessing than a burden without discussing the subject of grace. But what does it mean to be gracious? Well it means to be courteous and kind and pleasant, especially towards someone who’s of a lower social status than you. It sounds easy enough, but in fact it’s much harder to achieve than we might have thought. Here’s why.

By and large, in our relationships with other people, we operate on the understanding of a bilateral contract. Here’s what I mean by that. Contracts between parties, be they companies or individuals, set out the responsibility of each party towards the other. So, party A is responsible for doing these things; party B is responsible for doing those things, and if party A stops doing the things it’s contractually responsible to do, party B has certain remedies, which include being released from its responsibilities to party A, and of course vice versa.

That’s pretty much how every contract works. It’s a bilateral, two-directional, conditional contract because it has mutual obligations on both parties. And whether you’ve ever thought about it or not, that’s pretty much the mind-set with which we approach most (if not all) of our relationships – marriage; friendship; at work. I’ll do A, B and C, so long as you do X, Y and Z; but if you don’t, I won’t. No one argues with the logic, although they often argue over their contracts.

But this approach has a fundamental flaw. None of us is perfect, so everyone is always going to fall short of their contractual conditions or obligations, implied or otherwise. It’s an everyday occurrence, and when people fall short of our expectations, hey; we react. Sometimes we get angry; hurt; disappointed; resentful, and in response, we withdraw from our responsibilities.

Have you done this? It’s this contract mentality. “Well, they’re not meeting their end, so I’m going to stop doing my bit.” They in turn get angry or hurt or disappointed or resentful towards us, so they in turn step back and withdraw from their responsibilities, and so in turn we react, and there’s this ever-downward spiral in a relationship. It’s like a death of a thousand cuts. You’ve seen it; you’ve experienced it; so have I. It’s probably happening to you right now in some relationship; maybe even in several of your relationships.

We’re all imperfect. We all are. We’re always going to fall short of our bilateral contract, and I’m not talking about there being a formal contract; we just have this mind-set in our relationship with others. So I’m going to fall short in my relationship with you, and you are going to fall short in your relationship with me. So now, because we have this bilateral, conditional contract mentality, what do we do about it? Enter the solution. Grace.

Grace is a profoundly different type of contract because instead of being bilateral, conditional on what the other party does, it’s bizarrely unilateral, one-directional. The contract of grace says, “I will do this, if … well … if nothing. I’ll just do this, full stop, end of story. Whatever you do, I’ll still be doing what I promised.” When you think about it, that’s exactly what the marriage contract is supposed to be, and it’s the couples who start treating marriage as a conditional, bilateral contract who end up in the divorce courts.

By living as a person of grace, by determining to swim against the tide and live the unilateral, one-way, unconditional relationship type of contract, rather than the standard but deeply flawed bilateral, two-way, conditional relationship-contract, we all of a sudden become an amazing blessing to the people around us because when they fail, we’re not withdrawing from our relationship-responsibilities, and so we’re not escalating the conflict. The apostle Paul a couple of thousand years ago wrote this to his friends in a city called Corinth. He said (2 Corinthians 8:7):

But as you excel in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness and in our love for you, see that you excel in this act of grace also.

Just think about that. What if you and I were to excel in the act of grace? What if you and I were naturally gracious, forgiving, tolerant, accommodating, kind and generous sort of people who (surprise, surprise) are constantly falling short of our expectations and our needs? What a brilliant concept – excelling in grace! Just let that sink in for a moment. Paul actually wrote this thing in the context of raising some money for some people who were starving down in Jerusalem – people who the Corinthians really didn’t get on with that well, but who were living through a famine. It’s very much at the heart of the definition of unconditional love – grace, and he’s saying, “Excel in this”.

So imagine the Corinthians. They excel in grace; they give the money; the people starving in Jerusalem receive the money, get the food, fill their bellies, and then they discover it all came from those people down there in Corinth, who they didn’t really like! What do you reckon that does to the relationship between the folk in Corinth and the folk in Jerusalem? Changes everything. It restores; it builds up; it tears down the barrier; it opens the hearts and the minds; it does what grace always does – it brings people closer together.

Excel in acts of grace because grace is one of the most amazing blessings you can give. Why? By definition, grace can only be grace when it’s undeserved, and anyone who receives the blessing of grace (a blessing they don’t deserve) is forever changed. That’s how grace works.

God gets that, and that’s why the only way we can enter into a personal, eternal relationship with Him is through His unilateral, one-way, unconditional contract of grace. Ephesians 2:8-9:

For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not of your own doing. It’s the gift of God, not a result of your own works, so that no one may boast.

As I said right upfront, rules (God’s holiness and perfection) start out being bad news. It’s His grace that turns it around to being good news, and the expectations we have of others, for them, is bad news. Only our grace, alive and flowing out of our hearts, makes it good news to them.