what if you knew the whole story?...

the bible says over and over again, never compare yourself to anybody else and it gives two reasons.

one, you’re unique. GOD made you special. there’s nobody like you. HE made the mold and then HE broke it. you can’t be comparable to anybody else.

two, if you do start comparing, it’s always going to lead to one of two sins – pride or envy. when you start comparing yourself you think either “i’m doing better than them,” and you get full of pride. or “they’re doing better than me,” and you get full of envy. and they’re both sins. so GOD says never, never, never compare because it’s always going to lead to either pride or envy.

a lot of times we envy people because we don’t know the whole story behind their success or what we think they’ve got that we don’t have or ought to have. if you knew their background or you knew what sacrifices they’ve made to get where they are or if you knew their pain or their hurt of if you knew what it cost them to get what they have, you might not want it. you don’t know the whole story and that causes you to envy. you can’t see their pain and hurt from a distance. when you see people from a distance, it’s a whole lot easier to envy them.

that’s why this thing about celebrity worship is so unreal. i hope you’ll never again read a gossip column. it’s a total waste of time, and it only leads to envy. all those things are just airbrushed pr releases anyway. they’re not what people are really like.

let me tell you something. you can write this down, and take it to the bank! nobody is as cool as they appear. they may look like they’ve got it all together but if you get close, they don’t have it all together.

nobody is as happy as they seem to be. nobody is as carefree as they seem to be. nobody is as satisfied with their life or as successful as they appear to be. and that constant stream of celebrities checking into betty ford clinic isn’t doing it for fun. they’re doing it because their lives come unraveled. and honestly, behind the lives of celebrities, they often have more pain because they’re in the glare of the spotlight. you really don’t want what they’ve got.

the reality is every one of us has hidden hurts.

GOD has tailor made your cross. it’s just the one that’s right for you. so the first antidote to dealing with envy is just to get to know people. get to know them up close and personal and get to know them intimately. when you get to know people closely, you don’t envy them. but you can pray for them.

just a thought from the front porch…

you’ve got to be like me…

how do you know when you’ve really accepted somebody? simple. you don’t insist that they be like you.

galatians 6,4 (ncv), each person should judge his own actions and not compare himself to others, then he can be proud for what he himself has done.

1 corinthians 13.5 (lb), love does not demand its own way.

so many parents today are trying to make carbon copes of their kids. they say either subtly or overtly, “you need to be like me, act like i do, think like i do, talk like i do. you need to excel in the things that i excelled in. you need to be interested in the subjects i’m interested in. you need to do as good in the classes at school as i did or better.” if you’re athletic, you expect your children to be athletic or better athletes.

when GOD made your children, HE didn’t make them to be a carbon copy of you. the world does not need another you! GOD made your children to be themselves, so when you try to force them into a mold you’re not accepting their differences.

when doctors try to make their kids doctors and when lawyers try to make their kids lawyers and pastors try to make their kids pastors, you’re missing the point.
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some of you had parents who did this to you and you know the pain that it has caused. then don't do it to your kids.

just a thought from the front porch...

we are unique...

we need to accept each other’s uniqueness if we want to be successful in our relationships.

1 corinthians 12.6 (ph) says, GOD works through different people in different ways.

i really believe that one of our greatest responsibilities as parents, as people, if we want to bring out the best in each other is we must show people that they are unique. we must reinforce in our children that they don’t have to compare themselves to anybody else. they don’t have to be like anybody else. GOD made them unique and HE doesn’t make mistakes.

GOD put each one of us on this earth for an individual purpose and reason. now that’s difficult for us to comprehend because today we live in a culture of comparison. we compare, literally, everything. clothes, cars, homes, grade point average, income. we live in a constant culture of comparison.

did you ever have someone want to compare iq’s with you? listen, iq makes no difference at all because it’s only one measurement of smarts. there are lots of kinds of intelligence. an iq just measures one so it’s really irrelevant. there are athletic smarts. some people have smart bodies. they’re very coordinated. others of us are very uncoordinated. some of us have artistic intelligence. you can see spaces and you can draw beautiful pictures or shaped things and others of us are stuck with stick figures. some of us are good at numbers and others of us can’t add two plus twenty. some of us are good with words. some of us are good with people and relational skills. some people are naturally born leaders. they’re good at it. iq just measures one thing. nobody is good at everything.

einstein flunked many of his courses. in fact, he flunked math and his mother was worried about it.

a number of years ago there was a young kid who was very shy and retiring, unsociable. he dropped out of high school. but he did know how to use the computer and he founded microsoft. they used to call him geek and nerd and now they’re going, “we’re not worthy… we’re not worthy…” everybody thought “that man’s going nowhere!” now he runs the country and ninety percent of the computers in it.

you are unique. GOD made you that way.

just a thought from the front porch…

successful relationships...

there are so many things that we give our life to building that will not last in our lifetime let alone for eternity.

we men are into building things, building our careers, building security and we say to the women why don’t you take care of the relationships.

now i understand that GOD has built something into us to be the provider, to be the protector but it is not just the women’s job, the wives’ job to build the relationships.

you see the relationships are what are going to last for all of eternity. relationships are what CHRIST came to earth to have with us. we all really need each other and that is why we need to spend time on relationships because CHRIST died for relationships. that is why HE came and that is why we are here. so men, we too need to work on this very important, if not the most important task that GOD has given us in our lives.

i’ll be honest, if i had to choose between being a success at work and a success at home, i would gladly choose the success at home. now i believe that i can do both and i have given my life to helping people do both so we are going to look for awhile here on the front porch at being a success at relationships.

1 thessalonians 5.11 (niv) says, encourage one another and build each other up…

so we are going to look at some principles on how to build each other up or how to bring out the best in other people.

first of all we need to accept each other’s uniqueness. you can’t bring out the best in other people until first you accept them.

listen, GOD made everybody different. none of us are alike. we’re all different. even twins are different.

brett my son has turned me on to something that is really great. i wish we would have had this back when brett and stef were kids. the newest book in the series is strengthfinders 2.0. the whole premise is that we need to be working in our strengths, not our weaknesses.

now each one in our family has taken this and it has brought so much understanding to us as we have evaluated each other’s strengths. GOD has made each one of us unique.

just a thought from the front porch…