not mean but encouraging…

let me ask you.  who is there in your life that you trust enough to have those kind of talks where the sparks fly a little bit and maybe the emotions get up a little bit and the conversation isn’t the most pleasant you’ve ever had.  but on the other side of that there’s growth and change for both of you.  who is there? 

i’m not saying that every relationship in your life should be like this because you don’t have time to develop that kind of deep relationship with everyone.  but are the few people in your life that you’ve chosen to have a relationship with like this? 

somebody wrote, “a lot of us are hydroplaning over a lot of shallow relationships because we’re never willing to stop and take the time to go deep with a few.”  that’s true.  shallow doesn’t mean bad.  they’re good relationship, people that you love.  but you never take the time to go deep with the few, the people that you can trust to help you to move towards change in your life.

don’t think that these conversations have to be all nasty and negative and critical.  that’s not how they are supposed to happen.  the bible tells us in hebrews 10:24 (nlt), think of ways to encourage one another to outbursts of love and good deeds.

in order to help somebody to change, you’re not to be mean to them.  that’s not what makes it work.  you encourage them.  . 

look at what can happen.  when you encourage someone like that, it encourages an outburst of love, an outburst of doing the right thing. 

can you imagine that?  you and i have the power with a simple word of encouragement to somebody to encourage them to incredible new heights of love, to do the right thing like they’ve never done before in their lives – just through one person talking to another person.  that’s how powerful this can really be.

just a thought from the front porch…

it mostly comes in your interests...

our focus here on the porch right now is that love does not envy. now the fact is envy comes most often in the area that you’re most interested in and you’re most likely to be talented in. for instance, athletes envy other athletes, and doctors envy other doctors. musicians envy other musicians.

i have to say i have never been envious of a good seamstress. they can maybe sew up all kinds of incredible clothes. i just never wanted to be a seamstress. so there are areas in your life that you just don’t envy because you have no interest in those areas.

but if it gets a little bit close to home, and it’s an area that you’re interested in or have some talent in or wish you did, there comes the envy. it always happens. realtors envy other realtors; they don’t envy accountants. so we tend to find those who are closest to us in our profession or in our area of interests. brothers envy brothers, sisters envy sisters – things like that.

because envy is such a hidden sin, we don’t think it’s that bad. we don’t think it’s as harmful as the more overt ones like murder or lust or things like that. but the bible says this is an incredibly damaging sin. it’s hidden. but it’s mean. in fact, it’s the meanest sin of all because it is wishing bad on other people and it’s destructive. it devalues other people, it ruins your happiness, robs you of happiness, makes you miserable. it destroys relationships. it makes you critical.

i’ve discovered that when people are critical, if it’s not a constructive criticism, it’s almost always out of envy. criticism is almost always based in envy unless it’s a constructive criticism.

the main thing envy does is it keeps you from entering into the joy of other people. you miss out on a whole lot of joy in life you could be enjoying. for instance, let’s say you want to get married, but you’re not married right now. so every time you hear about a wedding, instead of being happy, you get resentful. you get envious. you can’t enjoy it. or, let’s say you want to have a baby, but you’re not having a baby. so every time you hear about a baby being born you don’t enjoy that. you don’t rejoice. you don’t rejoice with those who rejoice. you get envious. or you want a promotion, and somebody else in your company gets promoted. you don’t rejoice over that promotion. (“good for you! congratulations!”) no, you’re thinking, “how come not me?” or somebody gets a windfall, and they get a big inheritance, and you think, “how come i wasn’t born in a rich family? i have a poor family. i’m not getting any inheritance.”

as a result, you don’t enjoy much that goes on in the world. you can be a pretty miserable person. if the only time you’re happy is when good things happen to you, you’re not going to be happy that much, because happy things don’t happen to you all the time. a lot of life is just average, and a lot of life is bad things happening to you. on the other hand, if you learn to enjoy the good things that happen to others, you can be happy all the time. because something good is always happening to somebody.

just a thought from the front porch…