Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
So my journey when it comes to learning to be
content actually started where most of yours started. That you
can remember, Mine started in high school. I went to
a high school that started in the eighth grade. It
was eight through twelfth, ninth through twelve, so we were
all about this tall, okay, And so the eight through
twelfth grade long time ago, and I quickly and everybody's
looking for their group and their deal. And I realized
real quickly that even though I was a good kickball
(00:23):
player in our cul de sac, I was not an
athlete in a high school.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
So the athletes weren't going to be my deal.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
And because they weren't my deal, and they intimidated me me,
I did not like athletes. And then I realized I'm
not smart. My parents told me I was smart. But
then in high school I realized my parents lied. I
am not smart. I did not make good grades, and
I studied hard, and everybody would be finished studying, and
I'm like, wait a minute, we're not done. Are when
they're done? And so I'm making c's.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
So I wasn't smart.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
So I didn't like smart kids because I couldn't relate
to them. I did not I could not play a
wind instrument. Okay, if you cannot play a wind instrument
in high school, you cannot be in the band, that's right.
And my parents didn't want me to play the drums,
so I didn't like the band p people. They didn't
like me, so we weren't rich, so I didn't like
the rich people. So basically a high school I didn't
really like anybody because I wasn't like anybody. And you
(01:09):
want to be liked by people you like, and even
if you're not like them, you'd like to be liked
by them, so you try to be like them.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
But if you're not like them, you're not like them.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
And so this is my first this is my first
memories of feeling like an outsider. And the thing was,
I came up with an excuse, like like all of
us do, right, we manufacture reasons not to like people
so that we feel better about ourselves, because it's easier
to come up with five reasons why I don't like
them than to admit the fact that, well, I'm just
not smart, I'm not athletic, I'm not rich, I can't
(01:41):
play a wind instrument, I don't really fit in anywhere.
And then in the eleventh grade, I had my big break,
and I've actually am feeling better about just kind of
getting this off my chest. I think I've been carrying
this a long time. In the eleventh grade, I had
my big break because our whole class, the eleventh junior class,
was supposed to do some kind of.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Field day thing. I don't even remember.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
You kind of blame the things out because they're terrible,
and and it rained and so they put all the
eleventh graders in the cafeteria with no teachers because you know,
they're out there drinking coffee. And all the eleventh graders
are in there for this, you know, half the day
or not half the day, but you know a couple
of periods because this thing got rained out. And so
I'm sitting there and we're all looking around, and so it's.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
A typical cafeteria.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
There's a stage, and there was a grand piano on
the stage. And I had learned to play the guitar.
I taught myself to play the guitar, and then I
taught myself to play the guitar on the piano. Does
anybody know what it means to learn to play the
guitar on the piano?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Let me explain it to you.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
You you don't know how to read music, and you
can't play the melodies, but you just you're nodding, you
know what I'm talking about. So you play an octave
in the left hand.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
That's like boom boom boom.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I was like the bass, and then you just played
chords with your right hand. And I learned to I
could play any song that i'd heard. I had a
great year. I didn't know how to read music, so
I all got up on the stage and I just
started playing the piano, and of course it's loud, and
people came up around the piano, people I didn't know,
because I didn't know anybody. EX didn't like anybody. Nobody
liked me, and so it was mostly girls. So this
(03:01):
was like a win, right, and so they would ask
for a song and I could just I could pretty
much play anything, not well but well enough everybody sing it.
And suddenly I found my place in this world, right,
because there was something I was good at and I
was liked, and I liked being liked, and so I
graduated from high school. I decided, this is what I'm
gonna do the rest of my life. Because I liked it,
and people liked it that I liked it, and I
(03:21):
was good and I was getting better, and so I
decided to major in music. Went to Georgia State University,
and I decided to be a music major. And so
I took that, did that first semester and the second
semester where you do all the stuff you have to do,
and then I was going to get into the core.
And so I went to the music department and I thought,
I'm going to find somebody. Maybe I'll try out to
be the pianist in the jazz band. Now I understand
I could not read music, but that wasn't going to
get my way, because I could just listen to it
(03:43):
and learn it and fake it. You know.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
That was going to be my plan.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
And if you know anything about music, you know how
far that would have gotten me majoring in music at
a university. So I'll never forget this. I was on
the end the I don't know what the school's like now,
is a few years ago. So I'm in the basement
and they all have these practice rooms with all these
little studios with p and I'm walking down the hall
trying to find somebody.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
To talk to.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
And I hear this jazz piano music that's like otherworldly.
Like I'm listening, I'm just it's echoing down the halls.
I'm thinking, what in the world. And I was hoping
it was a recording and there wasn't actually somebody at
Georgia State University that could play that well, unless it
perhaps it was a teacher. And I go around the
(04:23):
current corner and there's some student standing out in the
hall looking in this little practice room and I get
behind him and I look in and there's the room
is full, and there's a grand piano in there, and
there's a guy in there.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I found out later his.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Name is Jerome, and he was like it was like butter,
it was like magic. It was like I think I
will change my major.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And I did because I could never be that good enough.
I'm never going to be that good I'm never gonna
make it and it's just not going to go well
for me.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
So more all of the story is and you know this,
and I'm just gonna put some words around some stuff
that you already know. There is always so with more er, right,
you know this, right, there is always someone who is richer,
who is skinnier, who is smarter er, who is hip er,
who is more talented er, or their girlfriend is pretty er,
(05:16):
or their boyfriend is cute er, or their job is
better er. I mean, everywhere you look, whatever you want
to do, and whatever you want to be good at,
whatever you think you're good at, and whatever you think
you've accomplished, there's always somebody with more er. So what
we do, or what I did, I shouldn't put this
on you. Maybe it's just me. What I did is
I looked around for people with less er so because
(05:39):
when I was with people had less er than my
er than, I felt superior er. And we all want
to feel like we kind of got it going on,
and we want to feel a little bit superior. So
this becomes a dynamic that we live with and I
don't think it ever goes away. And then there's some
of us and this isn't me so much, or maybe
it is, but I don't know if I want to
(05:59):
go this far in public confession. There's some of us
that don't even want to be an er. We want
to be an st. We want to be the rich st.
I want to be the smart s. You want to
be the healthy s. You want to be the cute s.
You want to be, the skinny s. You want to be,
the pretty s. You want to be the retweeted s. Okay,
you want an s. Right. So the moral of the
(06:20):
story is the moral of the story is there's just
no win. There's never, ever, ever any win in comparison.
You may have heard this before, you may have heard
me say this before. There's just no win in comparison.
In fact, comparison is what puts the disks in disk
Contentment and discontentment fueled by comparison is we're going to
see in a few minutes. And as all of us
(06:41):
already have a story, this isn't new information. Discontentment fueled
by comparison is actually very dangerous.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Some of you have consumer debt because you stared at
somebody else's lifestyle for too.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Long, didn't you.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Some of you have consumer debt because you stared at
what somebody else drives for too long. Some of you
have consumer debt because you visited their house. You should
have never visited their house because when you went back
to your house, you kind of walked around like this, like, man,
these eight foot ceilings, I feel like they're coming down
on me. I mean, I need ten or twelve foot ceilings,
and you went out and got yourself another mortgage, and
now you got all this debt and the reason and
(07:17):
you hate it. I mean, we all hate debt. That's
just the worst thing to have to live with. It
just seems into all of our relationships. Money is kind
of weird in that way. Money becomes emotional when you
owe money. You've you've learned that. We've all learned that
as adults. But unfortunately, unfortunately you've lived long enough to
experience what happens when you stare at what somebody, what
other people have that you don't have. It becomes very dangerous,
(07:39):
becomes dangerous relationally, it becomes dangerous.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
I mean, some of you.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Are dieting yourself to death, some of you are working
yourself to death, some of you are studying yourself to death.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
And what's driving you?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
You tell yourself, well, I'm just trying to maximize my potential.
That's a good thing to maximize your potential. But unfortunately
we're trying to maximize somebody else's potential that doesn't even
know we're competing with them, and oftentimes we're killing ourselves financially, relationally, emotionally,
it goes on and on and on, and it's because
we live in a world obviously, where we know what
everybody else has, and we know what everybody else drives.
(08:12):
And then it gets really weird relationally, like I experienced
in high school and have really and with a couple
of groups of people or types of people.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I've really struggled with my whole life.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
And I'm old enough and mature enough to know now
it's my issue, not theirs, but this whole comparison thing.
This will put you at odds with people that you
know you'll never be like that, you know you'll never
be as much as whatever it is you want to
be as that they are, as that you just aren't
going to be able to measure up to. So we
do what I did in high school. We don't outgrow this.
(08:41):
We kind of shrink back and we create reasons why
they're not okay. The problem is they're okay, it's just
that we're not okay. And you find yourself not being
able to get along with certain kinds of people who
remind you of who you'll never be and what you'll
never look like, and who you'll never may and what
you'll never do in your future. They got your job,
(09:04):
they're living your dream, and you're just miserable. And then
again because of the world we live in, and this
isn't going to change. So please don't hear me about
to give you the solution to this. I just want
you to feel horrible about yourself and then we'll sing
a song. Is I mean, this is church, right, I
mean that's what you do. You just feel bad about yourself.
That's the goal. Then you go home and go I
don't I didn't learn anything, but at least we all
(09:24):
have the same problem. So anyway, I do want to
I want to give you a way forward. But the
world we live in i' mean coming. I mean, I'm
like you.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I live.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
I live on a laptop or you know, I live
on my thumbs, and every browser reminds me of what
I don't have. Every website, even though I'm not even looking,
I mean right, everybody's tracking us. The other day, Sandra
and I were talking about Uber and we were saying,
you know, she says, I wonder I'm not making this up.
She says, I wonder if there's such thing as an
Uber gift card. I promise you I promise you on
(09:56):
both of our phones, on my iPad in her phone.
Adds to to showing up for you can buy a
gift card for Uber. I'm like I've said, I mean,
you hear those stories and we laugh, like it's not
(10:18):
They're not that efficient.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
I'm telling you unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Right, So, so everywhere you look, you're reminded of what
you don't look like, You're reminded of where you don't
work out. You're reminded that there is not enough ship
lap in the world to make you happy.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Right, I mean, we all know this.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
And now the worst thing, you know, I wasn't an
Instagram person and all my and again here's this is
how this works. All my preacher friends, you know, because
you know, I'm a pastor and the pastor of a
large church. So I have friends who are pastors of
large churches. And you know I had more. I had
more Twitter followers than them. I mean, it doesn't really matter,
I don't really look, but they had way more Instagram
(10:57):
followers than mean. One day, Sanders says.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
So and so and is there's one hundred and fifty
thousand Instagram following.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
What I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm doing okay, And
then now I'm like thinking about this all the time,
and God in Heaven's going.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
What I called you to do? And what do you
I mean?
Speaker 1 (11:13):
And now even on Instagram, I'm trying to, you know,
be saying, but it's like now they're advertising stuff on
I mean, it's just everywhere. So the thing is, this
isn't going away. And the point of the message isn't
that culture's bad and we need to abandon society and
all come together and you know, live in a commune
that I mean, that's not it. It's not going away. This
is not a problem that can be solved, right. And
(11:33):
then there's this and now I'll try to get something practical.
Then there's the whisper. I don't know what else to
call it. You might, you might have a better name
for this than me. I just call it the whisper.
There's this voice. It sounds a lot like my voice.
I don't know what your voice sounds like. There's this
whisper that basically just says you need what they have
to be respectable, acceptable and lovable. I mean, that's kind
(11:55):
of the moral of the culture's story, right, that you need.
It's a whisper sounds like my voice, but it's a
whispers in my head. You need what they have to
be respectable, acceptable and lovable.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
And I've been I've lived long enough to know this.
I will tell you.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
So let me tell you something about they. Okay, let
me tell you something about they. They whoever they are
for you, whether it's just images, it's people on browsers,
or it's people.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
That you know and they have you know and you
need to have it.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
They they actually have the same voice in their head
whispering the same thing. Because no matter what you have
or what you've accomplished, there's no when in comparison, it
never leads anywhere. In fact, the wisest man who ever lives, Solomon,
who had it all, done it all, been there, done that,
the wisest man who ever lived, he just summarized it
(12:44):
this way. He said this, he said, he wrote this.
Envy rots the bones.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Wow, that's extreme. Envy rots the bones.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
So the bottom line for our time together is simply this,
knock it off. Okay, just stop doing that. If only
were that easy. And I wish I could come out
here tonight and say, let me tell you how this
will never affect you again. I can't tell you how
to make it go away, but I do want to
tell you how to manage this tension because it's not
going away, but it won't go away. But it does
(13:14):
not have to control you, and it does not have.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
To drive you.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And as I was preparing for our time tonight, honestly,
I found myself in sort of devotional mode, going, God,
I am so glad I'm talking about this because I
need a reminder because even though I'm not in high
school anymore, there are just other versions of the same thing,
and it has the potential to ruin our lives. It
has the potential to drive us crazy financially, it has
the potential to make us less generous because as long
(13:39):
as I'm trying to keep up with people I can't
keep up with, I don't have any margin to give
to other people, and I don't have margin to support
the things that I want to support because I'm trying
to keep up with people that don't even.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Know I'm trying to keep up with them.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
So this isn't a problem that has ever solved, But
this is a tension that we all have to learn
to manage, especially if you're a Christian actually, if you're
a Jesus follower, because this intersects with your relation to
this intersect with your relationship with your heavenly Father, who
has called you this is an amazing thought. We're not
going to develop it, but it's just an amazing thought.
(14:12):
Who called you get this according to.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
His purpose? Wow?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
What what if you missed God's purpose for your life
because you were trying to keep up with a culture
that's not even a thing, it's a myth. We're going
to see a word in just a minute that Solomon
is gonna give us that helps us kind of put
some sort of personify this, this ghost, this vapor this thing,
(14:42):
this illusion that we all chase, this thing that has
the potential to steal the joy of life.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Not a problem to be solved.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
So what I want to do in our few minutes
that's left is my goal is to give you a
mental line of.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Defense something that sounds kind of technical and weird.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
A mental line of defense, in other words, a place
that you can go mentally when you start drifting toward
envy or discontentment emotionally. Because for most of this, even
though it starts right here with our eyes or our ears,
but generally our eyes. It gets emotional, It gets emotional
real quickly. Suddenly we're feeling behind, We're feeling unloved, we're
(15:18):
feeling ugly, we're feeling.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Like, you know, we're not keeping up.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
We're just we're feeling like we're not everything we ought
to be and everything everybody expects us to be. So
what I want to do tonight is I just want
to give you a couple of phrases that I hope
that you will kind of drive deep down into your
soul and as you experience the tug, as you hear
the whisper, and you're gonna hear the rest of your life,
just like I am, that we would have a place
to go mentally, to tell ourselves something that is so
(15:42):
true and so instructional that it may keep you between
the guardrails, and if you're a Christian, it may help
direct you toward God's purpose for your life.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
So back to the wisest guy that ever lived.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
He's jumping right into a little bit of a narrative
and he's kind of telling us what he's He's an
old man now and he's been there, done that. He's
so wealthy. Solomon was so wealthy, he'd accomplished so much.
So he has all this life experience, and he's downloading
his life experience for people like us who have less
life experience and will never experience life like he's experienced it.
(16:17):
Because part of the allure of culture is if only
I had, if only I drove, if only I looked,
if only I'm married.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
And Solomon says to us.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Hey, been there, drove it, lived in it, married it
looked like it, bought it, sold it, been there, whatever,
whatever your deal is, I've done that. And so let
me tell you what I've learned through my years of
having been there and done that, as it relates to
the whisper if only, if only, if only so.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Here's what he says.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
He says, and I saw he's talking about something he
saw in the past. And I saw that all toil,
all work in all achievement, all you goal setters, you know,
all toil and all achievement spring from one person's envy
of another. It's like what he goes, Yep, I've seen it.
I know what's happening out there. This isn't new. This
(17:05):
is three thousand years old at least, and older in
other words. He says, I looked around and I realized
everybody is simply competing. Everybody is determining. This is this
is this is shocking, This is embarrassing because this is
so true. Everybody is determining where they are based on
(17:26):
where everybody else is. Everybody is determining. To speak of
it in a way that he would that everybody. I
look around and I noticed that everybody is determining where
they are based on where other people are. And then
he says this, this too is meaningless. And then he
gives us our phrase. Then he gives us this mental image.
(17:48):
He gives us a phrase that I want you to memorize.
I just want this to become part of your mental language.
You know, the mental languages and stuff you don't necessarily
say out loud. You just think it. And by the way,
there are things that you should just think. They should
never come out of your mouth. Okay, just a little lesson.
Honesty is not saying everything that's true. That's foolish. You
(18:08):
will have no friends. Honesty is not saying everything that's true.
Honesty is just making sure that what you say is true.
So are there some true things you should never say?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
But anyway.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
So I want to give you a mint sense, something
that you say to yourself, or you may need.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
To say out loud. But here's here's the phrase. This
is so powerful.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
So I'm gonna read the whole verse, and that I'm
gonna add this last part. And I saw that all
toil and all achievements spring from one person's envy of another.
This too, is meaningless. And here's the phrase, A chasing
after the wind that powerful, A chasing after the wind.
It's endless, it's pointless. There is no finish line. There
(18:47):
is no trophy because there is no winner, and there
is no peace.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
There's just not er.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Dissatisfaction guaranteed, dissatisfaction guaranteed, because comparison is what puts the
dis and discontentment, and discontentment dissatisfaction guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
It steals the joy. And here's the tragedy.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
It steals the joy from our accomplishments. It steals the
joy from what we have done. It steals the joy
from the goals that we have set and have accomplished
because somebody else has accomplished more, because somebody else has more.
So when you catch yourself and you know what, here's
the thing. You're gonna catch yourself before you even leave
(19:42):
this auditorium. You're gonna catch yourself, you know, before this
hour is out. But when you catch yourself looking, oh, man,
you know, I wish I had hair like that. Uh,
you know, I wish I had skin like that. I
wish I, oh that, she looks so good, and I
wouldn't look good at that. He looks so good in that,
I'm not even gonna try. When you catch your your
self looking, when you catch yourself drifting, when you catch
(20:05):
yourself looking and drifting in somebody else's direction, when you
catch yourself drifting over into someone else's lane, that's when
you say to yourself. And for some of us, I
think we should say it out loud, not loud enough
for everybody else to hear, but just loud enough to
stop us. That's when we say, ah, that's chasing the wind.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
That's chasing the wind. No no, no, no, no, Ah, not
gonna buy that.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
That's just chasing the wind. Keep going, Ah, that's just
chasing the wind, chasing the wind. And I don't chase
the wind. So I want us to say this out loud. Together,
Both of these phrases you're ready, Here we go. That's
chasing the wind one more time. That's chasing the wind.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
And I don't chase the win. Do you mean? Come on?
Speaker 1 (20:51):
This isn't a Christian religious thing. This is just the
thing thing. Do you want to spend the rest of
your life chasing the wind?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
No? Why? Because there's no wind.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
In chasing the wind, there's no win in comparison.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
There's no trophy, there's no finish line, there's no there's
no I did it. You did what? I don't know.
I just did it. I know there's no win.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Okay, there's always faster, cute or smaller, younger, a hipper,
I mean bigger. It's chasing the wind. And come on,
I don't know you personally, but I know this. Your
life is too valuable, and your life is too short,
and your time is too valuable for you to waste
any of it.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Chasing the wind.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
So the moment, those emotions, those feelings of inadequacy and
I'm not rich enough, and I didn't measure up to
what my parents thought of all that. Who's that's chasing
the wind?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
And I don't chase the wind. Now.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Fortunately Solomon's not through because he knows there's another side
of this, and he knows what some of us are thinking,
because the whole idea of not chasing the wind is
not an invitation to be passive. In fact, I remember
Solomon wrote this. Solomon accomplished more than you will accomplish
in your whole life. And I'm not trying to put
you down. I'm just saying, like he was the king
of a nation. Okay, he had endless resources, he built
a temple. You can still, you know, go see the
(21:57):
base of the temple. I mean, he's an amazing person.
So he wasn't passive. He wasn't like I just live
and let live.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
It didn't matter.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
You live today and gone tomorrow. And he said some
things like that in Ecclesiastes. But in terms of his
life personally, he accomplished a great deal. So here's what
he says. He says, I don't take this to it
an unhealthy extreme. Fools, Fools fold their hands and ruin themselves.
Fools say, well, you know what, since I can't keep up,
Since everybody's better than me, since everybody has more talent
(22:26):
than me, since everybody had a better family, Since ever,
since everybody else, I'm just I'm just not.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Even gonna try.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Pelmus says, no, no, only a fool does that being
unproductive is not the answer. So he brings in this
next verse, this is so powerful. It's like, if you
don't ever read the Bible, you should read the Bible.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
In fact, start with what Solomon wrote.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
If you, in fact, if you're not a Christian, you're
not into the Jesus thing.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Hey, Jesus wasn't born for a long time. Start with Solomon.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
He was just a king. And these are just wise sayings.
It's just that they're found in the Bible, which which
is great. And here's what he says.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Next.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
He says, so he brings these two extremes together. He's like, look,
don't spend your life chasing the wind, and don't fold
your hands and go, oh well, why try. Don't spend
your life chasing the wind and trying to keep up
with people that don't even know you're trying to keep
up with them images on the screen. And at the
same time, don't just throw up your.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Hands and give up.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
And he brings them together in this next statement that's
so powerful. Some of you perhaps just need to memorize
the statement. He says this better. I love this better.
One handful with tranquility, then two handfuls with toil and
chasing after the wind.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
And that great. You're like, I don't even know what
it means.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
I know, I'm gonna explain it a minute, but it
is great, So just take Okay, but look at the
imagery of this. He says, it's better to have one
handful with tranquility, which rubs us the wrong way in
our culture because our culture isn't about one. Our culture
is about two. Our culture is about more. If I
had four hands, I'd have four handfuls, you know. I
mean it's all about more, more and more. He says, Okay,
(23:54):
I have more than all of you said. Just shut
up and listen for a second. I'm telling you one
handful with tranquility, one hand will with tranquility is better
than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Tranquility means satisfaction.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Tranquility means you drive home at night and you go
into your apartment, or you go into your house and.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
You're fine.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Tranquility means you visit your your friend, or your your
older brother, or even your younger brother, or your older
sister or younger sister, and they live in this big
old house, you know, and they got a gate.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
You gotta gage, you, hey, can I can? I commit?
Speaker 1 (24:29):
It's your brother and they have to beat you know,
let you in their gage, you know, you know, and
then you drive home to wherever you live, and you
know what tranquility is. Tranquility is. I'm so happy for them,
and it doesn't bother me. I'm so happy for them,
it doesn't bother me. I'm so happy for her, it
doesn't bother me.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
You got into your your your grad school.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
That's so great, and you got into the school I
wanted to go to. I'm I'm you know what. Upon
a time that would have bothered me so much. I'm
not even sure we could be friends. But I've learned
that one handful with tranquility, of tranquility is better than
two handfuls of striving and chasing. Here's the thing. We
(25:14):
assume more is better. That's what we're taught every single day.
We assume more is better, But chasing more always leaves
us wanting more.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
So here's his point. This is why it's so powerful.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Less is actually more when the less you hold is
what you were created for. That less is actually more
when the less you hold is what you were designed,
what you were created for, what you were born to
do better one handful of tranquility than grasping and striving
(25:50):
and pretending and competing. Then he goes on, he said,
let me tell you something else I saw while we're
talking about it. This is so great Again, he said,
I saw something meaningless under the sun.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Well, tell us what it is. This is fascinating Solomon.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
There was a man all alone. He had neither son
nor brother, to which we're like, so what. But see,
in this culture, if you didn't have a son and
you didn't have a brother, then you had no one
to leave your estate to and your wealth to. Or
even if you didn't have much, you didn't have anybody
to leave anything to, because in ancient times women could
not inherit anything. So here's a guy who's been working
(26:26):
hard and has something to show for it, but he
doesn't have anyone to leave it to. And then Solomon
says this there was no end to his toil. In
other words, he was just getting after it. Yet his
eyes were not content with his wealth. So he was
working hard and he was getting more but you know,
more leads to more, and bigger leads to bigger, and
better leads to better. And he's just getting after getting
(26:46):
after getting after it. And then he finally, this guy
stops and asks a question that some of you've never asked.
And I'm telling you, I wish i'd asked this question
much earlier in my life. I fact, if I could
sit down with you and you're, you know, some of
your fifth twenty thirty years younger, forty years younger than me,
I don't know how old Joe, I would say. You
know what, if you'll begin to ask yourself this question
(27:07):
early on, it will help you, It will make it
will you will learn to be content with one handful
of tranquility, and it won't. You won't be content like
you want to accomplish anything. You will accomplish all you
were born to accomplish, but you'll do it with peace
and tranquility. Because here's a question this guy forgot to
ask that most of us forget to ask. And here's
the question. It's so powerful that's Alma says, he forgot
(27:28):
to ask. For whom am I toiling? He finally asked
the question. I mean, he's been going on and on
and on year after year, and it's like he's going,
wait a minute, what who am I doing this for?
Who am I doing this with? And who am I
doing this for? What am what am I trying to prove?
And who am I trying to prove it to? Now,
(27:49):
this is a hard question, and I had to wrestle
this one to the ground many years ago. That's why
I just would love you know, if we were sitting
down over coffee, I would say, this is this is a.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Really big deal.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
And the younger you are, the more powerful, and the
more time you have to live this out. But it's
never too late, because there's an answer to this question,
whether you've asked the question or not, and whether you
know the answer or not, there's an answer to the question.
Why are you doing this? Why are you striving? Why
are you toiling? Why are you pushing? Why are you
(28:18):
gritting your teeth?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
What? Who is it for? And for some of you
do you know who it's for?
Speaker 1 (28:24):
You're competing with your brother, you're competing with a sister,
some of you are trying to live up to your
mother's expectations. And let me just tell you something I
don't know your mother, but you'll you'll never win with
your mother. You won't. You know how I know it
because if you could have won, you would have won.
(28:45):
If it's going been going on a year after you
after year, and she's this, and you're just trying and
try and trying. Okay, why some of you are trying
to please your father. Some of you are trying to
make your father smile and finally give you that hug.
And some of you your father passed away and you're
still striving, and you've never stopped and asked this powerful question.
(29:07):
Wait a minute, what why am I doing this? Who
am I doing this for? Who's approval am I competing for?
And do they even know? And do they even care?
And would it even matter if they did? So, here's
(29:29):
a question they were moving on for whom to use
his word, for whom are you toiling? And let me
just give your heads up. If you say I'm doing
it for me, M probably not. Well I'm just doing
it for me, oh maybe. But before you just go
there and move on, this is a question you need
to wrestle to the ground for whom are you toiling?
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Really? Because for some of you, when you are able
to answer that question.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
It will free you up to be content with one
handful of tranquility instead of two hands.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Of if only, if only? In when he goes on,
and why this is so amazing?
Speaker 1 (30:09):
This is the same fictitious this this, this guy that
Solomon knew that sort of represents, you know, people, humanity.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
And why am I depriving myself of enjoyment? This guy?
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Solomon says. The thing about this guy, he accomplished so much,
he has no one to leave it to, and he's
not even enjoying his stuff. He's so bound up with
more stuff and chasing the wind. It's like, wait a minute,
who am I doing this for? And why is it
I'm not even enjoying the fruit of my labor. It's
because he'd never answered the question, and why am I
doing this to begin with? And perhaps you aren't enjoying
(30:43):
your life either, And let me tell you what.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
If you're not enjoying your life, no one else will.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Okay, if you're raising kids, if you're not enjoying your life,
they're not enjoying your life.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
For some of the some of you, I'm getting a little personal.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
The reason that you're your relationships are just kind of repeat,
re repeat same thing.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
In it's the same way.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
If you're not enjoying your life, the people that you
date aren't going to enjoy you.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
They're just not.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
If you're not enjoying your life, the people that are
closest to your friends, they won't enjoy you either. They
will sense your angst. In fact, they may have tried
to tell you, and you're like, there's.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Nothing wrong with me. I'm just ambitious. I'm just a
goal setter. Well, no, you're something else.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
But I can't say that because Andy said, don't say
everything that's true. Just make sure what you say is true.
So I'm not going to really tell you what anyway.
So and then there's this okay, just to really if
there's not if you don't feel guilty enough, are motivated enough.
I hope you're motivated think about this.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Isn't it true?
Speaker 1 (31:37):
I don't think you could argue with this. Somewhere in
the world tonight there are a billion people, or let's
just be conservative, somewhere in the world tonight are half
a billion people that would look at your life and
your circumstances and your.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Body and where you live and what you drive.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
And who you know and they would consider you one
of the luckiest people on earth, but you don't. And
do you know why you don't, because you don't know
why you're toiling and striving, and you don't know who
you're doing it for. One handful with peace and tranquility
(32:19):
is so much better than two handfuls of grit, intention
and a lack of peace. This too, he says. I mean,
he's so honest, This too, is meaningless. It's a miserable
business you will never find. You just have to trust
(32:44):
me on this, or just figure it out for yourself
or think it through.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
You're smart, you know this.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
You will never be who you were born to be
as long as you are looking over your shoulder at
anybody else, because the energy you expanded and the energy
I expand looking left and right and over my shoulder,
that is energy God gave us to do what God
has called us and created us to do. And if
(33:09):
you're a Christian, as I said earlier, you'll never discover
God's purpose for your life. You are so aware of
God's purpose, perhaps for other people's life, but you will
never discover God's purpose for your life as long as
you're distracted by someone else's success. Now, I grew up
(33:29):
some of you know, I grew up with a very
successful father, and in some circles, I grew up with
a very famous father. And I had to figure this
out from myself. And I wish I had asked some
of these questions much earlier in my life. And I
wish I had learned one handful of tranquility is so
much better than two hands of striving and chasing after
(33:51):
the women. And I'll tell you somebody else who had
to learn it in a similar way, as well as
somebody that all of you've heard of, and some of
you know something.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
About him, some of you virtually nothing about him.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
His name is Joel Ostein, right, Joel Oastin's also a pastor.
And I love Joel's story because I maybe it's because
I'm a preacher's kid and he was a preacher's kid
and he said something.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
I read his story. Then. I've only met him.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
One time, and we had one conversation and he was
with the group and he told his story and I
wrote something down. I'm going to show you what he
wrote down in just a minute. But his story, the
thirty second version of his story is he dropped out
of college and went back home to work for his
dad editing video. His dad was a pastor on TV
and he would edit his dad's video. So that's what
he did. He did not an extrovert. Introvert, just wanted
(34:34):
to edit video for his daddy, as he calls me,
his daddy. And then his daddy got sick, was put
in the hospital. They didn't have anybody to preach one Sunday,
and so his family said, Joel, you need to preach,
and he's like, I don't preach, I edit video. He'd
never preached in his life. They said, no, you need
to preach, and so Joel. So his dad called him
from the hospital. He said, and he said, Joel, I
just need you to preach for me Sunday.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Everybody will love you. You're my son.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Theyn't understand. He's like, Daddy, I don't have any sermons.
His dad said, okay, Joel, huge pick one of my
sermons that you really like a lot, and just repreach that.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
He said.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Two days later, I called my dad in the hospital
and sai, Dad, I can't find any of your sermons
that I really like a lot.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
But he finally picked one and he preached one and.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
It was terrible. It's terrible. The next week, his father
passed away and his family came to him and said, Joel,
we think God has his hand on you. You're a
pastor and preach at this journey. He's like, I've preached
one sermon.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
And it was terrible.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
And Joel talked about how he tried to preach like
his dad. He said, he said, you're not going to
believe this. He said, I actually wore my father's shoes
for the first few months that I preach, trying to
figure this out. And then he said something I wrote down.
And regardless of what you know about Joel Ostein, and
(35:50):
regardless of what you think about Joel Ostein, I don't
want you to miss this because this is so powerful.
In fact, this next statement is why you've heard of
Joel Ostein. He worked for his dad in pret and
See for seventeen years.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
This is what he said.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
He said, Then it dawned on me. I have to
run my race. I can't run my daddy's race or
any other preacher's race. And he's been running his race
ever since. And here's why I tell you that story. Look,
come here, you have to learn to run your race
(36:26):
and quit chasing the wind.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Back to Solomon, here's what he says.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
A heart this is the entire statement that I gave
you the second part of at the beginning. Solomon says this,
A heart at peace gives life to the body, but
envy rots the bones. You cannot I don't care how
rich you are, poor you are, how good looking you are,
where you live, what you're you're connected to. You cannot
(36:59):
compare your way to peace. You cannot compare your way
to peace. You cannot compare your way to tranquility. You
can't win chasing the win God has given you. God
has given you a race to run, and you need
(37:22):
to get in your lane, and you need to focus,
and you need to stay there. Look to other people
for inspiration and celebrate their success. You look to them
for inspiration, but you don't look to them for imitation.
When you see somebody knocking it out of the park,
maybe somebody living your dream, somebody driving your car, somebody
going to your school getting your degree, you celebrate them.
You say, I'm so happy for you. But I am
(37:44):
running my race and I am staying in my lane.
I'm not gonna waste an ounce of my energy resenting you.
I'm not gonna waste an ounce of my life being
jealous of you, because I'm running my race in the
lane that God has put me in. Jordan Peterson in
twelve Rolls Life of Fabulous book, he says it this way.
I love this quote. He says, compare yourself. Compare yourself
(38:06):
to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else
is today.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
That is great advice, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
If you've got to compare Compare yourself to who you
were yesterday, Because if who you were yesterday is not
as who you not as great as who you are today,
then you're making progress. Compare yourself to yourself, but don't
waste your life and caund waste your energy comparing yourself
to other people. Count your blessings, not your neighbors. You
know what, when you begin counting your blessings and you
(38:33):
drop it into the context of how some people live
in this world, You'll wake up every single day grateful.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
You'll go to bed every.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Single night grateful every single night, every single morning, you
will be grateful when you start counting your blessings rather
than everybody else's. Here's the thing, please, because you only
get one shot. Don't miss the life. Don't miss what life.
Don't miss the life God has for you, and don't
(38:59):
miss us what life has for you.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
You will never experience.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
You will never experience your life fully.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
You will never.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Experience your life fully until you embrace what is right
in front of you. I've done it the right way.
I've done it the wrong way. I wish I'd learned
this earlier. You can begin today. So when your emotions
start drifting, when your emotions start drifting, when your emotions
(39:32):
start drifting, when your emotions start drifting and start getting
the best of you, you stop and you just declare
to yourself. I say, you declare it out loud. I
will not chase the wind. I will run my race
and my lane. I will not chase the wind. That's
good for you, congratulations, that's great. I will not chase
(39:53):
the wind. I will run my race and my lane.
And if you do, you will become the person God
created you to be. But if you aren't willing to
take my advice, and if you aren't willing to take
(40:14):
Solomon's advice, and if you're not willing to take Jordan
Peterson's advice, then, I think you should at least take
it from Bruce. Find your lane and run in it, because,
after all, tramps like us, baby, we were born to
run
So my journey when it comes to learning to be
content actually started where most of yours started. That you
can remember, Mine started in high school. I went to
a high school that started in the eighth grade. It
was eight through twelfth, ninth through twelve, so we were
all about this tall, okay, And so the eight through
twelfth grade long time ago, and I quickly and everybody's
looking for their group and their deal. And I realized
real quickly that even though I was a good kickball
(00:23):
player in our cul de sac, I was not an
athlete in a high school.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
So the athletes weren't going to be my deal.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
And because they weren't my deal, and they intimidated me me,
I did not like athletes. And then I realized I'm
not smart. My parents told me I was smart. But
then in high school I realized my parents lied. I
am not smart. I did not make good grades, and
I studied hard, and everybody would be finished studying, and
I'm like, wait a minute, we're not done. Are when
they're done? And so I'm making c's.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
So I wasn't smart.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
So I didn't like smart kids because I couldn't relate
to them. I did not I could not play a
wind instrument. Okay, if you cannot play a wind instrument
in high school, you cannot be in the band, that's right.
And my parents didn't want me to play the drums,
so I didn't like the band p people. They didn't
like me, so we weren't rich, so I didn't like
the rich people. So basically a high school I didn't
really like anybody because I wasn't like anybody. And you
(01:09):
want to be liked by people you like, and even
if you're not like them, you'd like to be liked
by them, so you try to be like them.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
But if you're not like them, you're not like them.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
And so this is my first this is my first
memories of feeling like an outsider. And the thing was,
I came up with an excuse, like like all of
us do, right, we manufacture reasons not to like people
so that we feel better about ourselves, because it's easier
to come up with five reasons why I don't like
them than to admit the fact that, well, I'm just
not smart, I'm not athletic, I'm not rich, I can't
(01:41):
play a wind instrument, I don't really fit in anywhere.
And then in the eleventh grade, I had my big break,
and I've actually am feeling better about just kind of
getting this off my chest. I think I've been carrying
this a long time. In the eleventh grade, I had
my big break because our whole class, the eleventh junior class,
was supposed to do some kind of.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Field day thing. I don't even remember.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
You kind of blame the things out because they're terrible,
and and it rained and so they put all the
eleventh graders in the cafeteria with no teachers because you know,
they're out there drinking coffee. And all the eleventh graders
are in there for this, you know, half the day
or not half the day, but you know a couple
of periods because this thing got rained out. And so
I'm sitting there and we're all looking around, and so it's.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
A typical cafeteria.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
There's a stage, and there was a grand piano on
the stage. And I had learned to play the guitar.
I taught myself to play the guitar, and then I
taught myself to play the guitar on the piano. Does
anybody know what it means to learn to play the
guitar on the piano?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Let me explain it to you.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
You you don't know how to read music, and you
can't play the melodies, but you just you're nodding, you
know what I'm talking about. So you play an octave
in the left hand.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
That's like boom boom boom.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I was like the bass, and then you just played
chords with your right hand. And I learned to I
could play any song that i'd heard. I had a
great year. I didn't know how to read music, so
I all got up on the stage and I just
started playing the piano, and of course it's loud, and
people came up around the piano, people I didn't know,
because I didn't know anybody. EX didn't like anybody. Nobody
liked me, and so it was mostly girls. So this
(03:01):
was like a win, right, and so they would ask
for a song and I could just I could pretty
much play anything, not well but well enough everybody sing it.
And suddenly I found my place in this world, right,
because there was something I was good at and I
was liked, and I liked being liked, and so I
graduated from high school. I decided, this is what I'm
gonna do the rest of my life. Because I liked it,
and people liked it that I liked it, and I
(03:21):
was good and I was getting better, and so I
decided to major in music. Went to Georgia State University,
and I decided to be a music major. And so
I took that, did that first semester and the second
semester where you do all the stuff you have to do,
and then I was going to get into the core.
And so I went to the music department and I thought,
I'm going to find somebody. Maybe I'll try out to
be the pianist in the jazz band. Now I understand
I could not read music, but that wasn't going to
get my way, because I could just listen to it
(03:43):
and learn it and fake it. You know.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
That was going to be my plan.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
And if you know anything about music, you know how
far that would have gotten me majoring in music at
a university. So I'll never forget this. I was on
the end the I don't know what the school's like now,
is a few years ago. So I'm in the basement
and they all have these practice rooms with all these
little studios with p and I'm walking down the hall
trying to find somebody.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
To talk to.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
And I hear this jazz piano music that's like otherworldly.
Like I'm listening, I'm just it's echoing down the halls.
I'm thinking, what in the world. And I was hoping
it was a recording and there wasn't actually somebody at
Georgia State University that could play that well, unless it
perhaps it was a teacher. And I go around the
(04:23):
current corner and there's some student standing out in the
hall looking in this little practice room and I get
behind him and I look in and there's the room
is full, and there's a grand piano in there, and
there's a guy in there.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I found out later his.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Name is Jerome, and he was like it was like butter,
it was like magic. It was like I think I
will change my major.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And I did because I could never be that good enough.
I'm never going to be that good I'm never gonna
make it and it's just not going to go well
for me.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
So more all of the story is and you know this,
and I'm just gonna put some words around some stuff
that you already know. There is always so with more er, right,
you know this, right, there is always someone who is richer,
who is skinnier, who is smarter er, who is hip er,
who is more talented er, or their girlfriend is pretty er,
(05:16):
or their boyfriend is cute er, or their job is
better er. I mean, everywhere you look, whatever you want
to do, and whatever you want to be good at,
whatever you think you're good at, and whatever you think
you've accomplished, there's always somebody with more er. So what
we do, or what I did, I shouldn't put this
on you. Maybe it's just me. What I did is
I looked around for people with less er so because
(05:39):
when I was with people had less er than my
er than, I felt superior er. And we all want
to feel like we kind of got it going on,
and we want to feel a little bit superior. So
this becomes a dynamic that we live with and I
don't think it ever goes away. And then there's some
of us and this isn't me so much, or maybe
it is, but I don't know if I want to
(05:59):
go this far in public confession. There's some of us
that don't even want to be an er. We want
to be an st. We want to be the rich st.
I want to be the smart s. You want to
be the healthy s. You want to be the cute s.
You want to be, the skinny s. You want to be,
the pretty s. You want to be the retweeted s. Okay,
you want an s. Right. So the moral of the
(06:20):
story is the moral of the story is there's just
no win. There's never, ever, ever any win in comparison.
You may have heard this before, you may have heard
me say this before. There's just no win in comparison.
In fact, comparison is what puts the disks in disk
Contentment and discontentment fueled by comparison is we're going to
see in a few minutes. And as all of us
(06:41):
already have a story, this isn't new information. Discontentment fueled
by comparison is actually very dangerous.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Some of you have consumer debt because you stared at
somebody else's lifestyle for too.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Long, didn't you.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Some of you have consumer debt because you stared at
what somebody else drives for too long. Some of you
have consumer debt because you visited their house. You should
have never visited their house because when you went back
to your house, you kind of walked around like this, like, man,
these eight foot ceilings, I feel like they're coming down
on me. I mean, I need ten or twelve foot ceilings,
and you went out and got yourself another mortgage, and
now you got all this debt and the reason and
(07:17):
you hate it. I mean, we all hate debt. That's
just the worst thing to have to live with. It
just seems into all of our relationships. Money is kind
of weird in that way. Money becomes emotional when you
owe money. You've you've learned that. We've all learned that
as adults. But unfortunately, unfortunately you've lived long enough to
experience what happens when you stare at what somebody, what
other people have that you don't have. It becomes very dangerous,
(07:39):
becomes dangerous relationally, it becomes dangerous.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
I mean, some of you.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Are dieting yourself to death, some of you are working
yourself to death, some of you are studying yourself to death.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
And what's driving you?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
You tell yourself, well, I'm just trying to maximize my potential.
That's a good thing to maximize your potential. But unfortunately
we're trying to maximize somebody else's potential that doesn't even
know we're competing with them, and oftentimes we're killing ourselves financially, relationally, emotionally,
it goes on and on and on, and it's because
we live in a world obviously, where we know what
everybody else has, and we know what everybody else drives.
(08:12):
And then it gets really weird relationally, like I experienced
in high school and have really and with a couple
of groups of people or types of people.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I've really struggled with my whole life.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
And I'm old enough and mature enough to know now
it's my issue, not theirs, but this whole comparison thing.
This will put you at odds with people that you
know you'll never be like that, you know you'll never
be as much as whatever it is you want to
be as that they are, as that you just aren't
going to be able to measure up to. So we
do what I did in high school. We don't outgrow this.
(08:41):
We kind of shrink back and we create reasons why
they're not okay. The problem is they're okay, it's just
that we're not okay. And you find yourself not being
able to get along with certain kinds of people who
remind you of who you'll never be and what you'll
never look like, and who you'll never may and what
you'll never do in your future. They got your job,
(09:04):
they're living your dream, and you're just miserable. And then
again because of the world we live in, and this
isn't going to change. So please don't hear me about
to give you the solution to this. I just want
you to feel horrible about yourself and then we'll sing
a song. Is I mean, this is church, right, I
mean that's what you do. You just feel bad about yourself.
That's the goal. Then you go home and go I
don't I didn't learn anything, but at least we all
(09:24):
have the same problem. So anyway, I do want to
I want to give you a way forward. But the
world we live in i' mean coming. I mean, I'm
like you.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I live.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
I live on a laptop or you know, I live
on my thumbs, and every browser reminds me of what
I don't have. Every website, even though I'm not even looking,
I mean right, everybody's tracking us. The other day, Sandra
and I were talking about Uber and we were saying,
you know, she says, I wonder I'm not making this up.
She says, I wonder if there's such thing as an
Uber gift card. I promise you I promise you on
(09:56):
both of our phones, on my iPad in her phone.
Adds to to showing up for you can buy a
gift card for Uber. I'm like I've said, I mean,
you hear those stories and we laugh, like it's not
(10:18):
They're not that efficient.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
I'm telling you unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Right, So, so everywhere you look, you're reminded of what
you don't look like, You're reminded of where you don't
work out. You're reminded that there is not enough ship
lap in the world to make you happy.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Right, I mean, we all know this.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
And now the worst thing, you know, I wasn't an
Instagram person and all my and again here's this is
how this works. All my preacher friends, you know, because
you know, I'm a pastor and the pastor of a
large church. So I have friends who are pastors of
large churches. And you know I had more. I had
more Twitter followers than them. I mean, it doesn't really matter,
I don't really look, but they had way more Instagram
(10:57):
followers than mean. One day, Sanders says.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
So and so and is there's one hundred and fifty
thousand Instagram following.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
What I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm doing okay, And
then now I'm like thinking about this all the time,
and God in Heaven's going.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
What I called you to do? And what do you
I mean?
Speaker 1 (11:13):
And now even on Instagram, I'm trying to, you know,
be saying, but it's like now they're advertising stuff on
I mean, it's just everywhere. So the thing is, this
isn't going away. And the point of the message isn't
that culture's bad and we need to abandon society and
all come together and you know, live in a commune
that I mean, that's not it. It's not going away. This
is not a problem that can be solved, right. And
(11:33):
then there's this and now I'll try to get something practical.
Then there's the whisper. I don't know what else to
call it. You might, you might have a better name
for this than me. I just call it the whisper.
There's this voice. It sounds a lot like my voice.
I don't know what your voice sounds like. There's this
whisper that basically just says you need what they have
to be respectable, acceptable and lovable. I mean, that's kind
(11:55):
of the moral of the culture's story, right, that you need.
It's a whisper sounds like my voice, but it's a
whispers in my head. You need what they have to
be respectable, acceptable and lovable.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
And I've been I've lived long enough to know this.
I will tell you.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
So let me tell you something about they. Okay, let
me tell you something about they. They whoever they are
for you, whether it's just images, it's people on browsers,
or it's people.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
That you know and they have you know and you
need to have it.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
They they actually have the same voice in their head
whispering the same thing. Because no matter what you have
or what you've accomplished, there's no when in comparison, it
never leads anywhere. In fact, the wisest man who ever lives, Solomon,
who had it all, done it all, been there, done that,
the wisest man who ever lived, he just summarized it
(12:44):
this way. He said this, he said, he wrote this.
Envy rots the bones.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Wow, that's extreme. Envy rots the bones.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
So the bottom line for our time together is simply this,
knock it off. Okay, just stop doing that. If only
were that easy. And I wish I could come out
here tonight and say, let me tell you how this
will never affect you again. I can't tell you how
to make it go away, but I do want to
tell you how to manage this tension because it's not
going away, but it won't go away. But it does
(13:14):
not have to control you, and it does not have.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
To drive you.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And as I was preparing for our time tonight, honestly,
I found myself in sort of devotional mode, going, God,
I am so glad I'm talking about this because I
need a reminder because even though I'm not in high
school anymore, there are just other versions of the same thing,
and it has the potential to ruin our lives. It
has the potential to drive us crazy financially, it has
the potential to make us less generous because as long
(13:39):
as I'm trying to keep up with people I can't
keep up with, I don't have any margin to give
to other people, and I don't have margin to support
the things that I want to support because I'm trying
to keep up with people that don't even.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Know I'm trying to keep up with them.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
So this isn't a problem that has ever solved, But
this is a tension that we all have to learn
to manage, especially if you're a Christian actually, if you're
a Jesus follower, because this intersects with your relation to
this intersect with your relationship with your heavenly Father, who
has called you this is an amazing thought. We're not
going to develop it, but it's just an amazing thought.
(14:12):
Who called you get this according to.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
His purpose? Wow?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
What what if you missed God's purpose for your life
because you were trying to keep up with a culture
that's not even a thing, it's a myth. We're going
to see a word in just a minute that Solomon
is gonna give us that helps us kind of put
some sort of personify this, this ghost, this vapor this thing,
(14:42):
this illusion that we all chase, this thing that has
the potential to steal the joy of life.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Not a problem to be solved.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
So what I want to do in our few minutes
that's left is my goal is to give you a
mental line of.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Defense something that sounds kind of technical and weird.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
A mental line of defense, in other words, a place
that you can go mentally when you start drifting toward
envy or discontentment emotionally. Because for most of this, even
though it starts right here with our eyes or our ears,
but generally our eyes. It gets emotional, It gets emotional
real quickly. Suddenly we're feeling behind, We're feeling unloved, we're
(15:18):
feeling ugly, we're feeling.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Like, you know, we're not keeping up.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
We're just we're feeling like we're not everything we ought
to be and everything everybody expects us to be. So
what I want to do tonight is I just want
to give you a couple of phrases that I hope
that you will kind of drive deep down into your
soul and as you experience the tug, as you hear
the whisper, and you're gonna hear the rest of your life,
just like I am, that we would have a place
to go mentally, to tell ourselves something that is so
(15:42):
true and so instructional that it may keep you between
the guardrails, and if you're a Christian, it may help
direct you toward God's purpose for your life.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
So back to the wisest guy that ever lived.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
He's jumping right into a little bit of a narrative
and he's kind of telling us what he's He's an
old man now and he's been there, done that. He's
so wealthy. Solomon was so wealthy, he'd accomplished so much.
So he has all this life experience, and he's downloading
his life experience for people like us who have less
life experience and will never experience life like he's experienced it.
(16:17):
Because part of the allure of culture is if only
I had, if only I drove, if only I looked,
if only I'm married.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
And Solomon says to us.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Hey, been there, drove it, lived in it, married it
looked like it, bought it, sold it, been there, whatever,
whatever your deal is, I've done that. And so let
me tell you what I've learned through my years of
having been there and done that, as it relates to
the whisper if only, if only, if only so.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Here's what he says.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
He says, and I saw he's talking about something he
saw in the past. And I saw that all toil,
all work in all achievement, all you goal setters, you know,
all toil and all achievement spring from one person's envy
of another. It's like what he goes, Yep, I've seen it.
I know what's happening out there. This isn't new. This
(17:05):
is three thousand years old at least, and older in
other words. He says, I looked around and I realized
everybody is simply competing. Everybody is determining. This is this
is this is shocking, This is embarrassing because this is
so true. Everybody is determining where they are based on
(17:26):
where everybody else is. Everybody is determining. To speak of
it in a way that he would that everybody. I
look around and I noticed that everybody is determining where
they are based on where other people are. And then
he says this, this too is meaningless. And then he
gives us our phrase. Then he gives us this mental image.
(17:48):
He gives us a phrase that I want you to memorize.
I just want this to become part of your mental language.
You know, the mental languages and stuff you don't necessarily
say out loud. You just think it. And by the way,
there are things that you should just think. They should
never come out of your mouth. Okay, just a little lesson.
Honesty is not saying everything that's true. That's foolish. You
(18:08):
will have no friends. Honesty is not saying everything that's true.
Honesty is just making sure that what you say is true.
So are there some true things you should never say?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
But anyway.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
So I want to give you a mint sense, something
that you say to yourself, or you may need.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
To say out loud. But here's here's the phrase. This
is so powerful.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
So I'm gonna read the whole verse, and that I'm
gonna add this last part. And I saw that all
toil and all achievements spring from one person's envy of another.
This too, is meaningless. And here's the phrase, A chasing
after the wind that powerful, A chasing after the wind.
It's endless, it's pointless. There is no finish line. There
(18:47):
is no trophy because there is no winner, and there
is no peace.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
There's just not er.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Dissatisfaction guaranteed, dissatisfaction guaranteed, because comparison is what puts the
dis and discontentment, and discontentment dissatisfaction guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
It steals the joy. And here's the tragedy.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
It steals the joy from our accomplishments. It steals the
joy from what we have done. It steals the joy
from the goals that we have set and have accomplished
because somebody else has accomplished more, because somebody else has more.
So when you catch yourself and you know what, here's
the thing. You're gonna catch yourself before you even leave
(19:42):
this auditorium. You're gonna catch yourself, you know, before this
hour is out. But when you catch yourself looking, oh, man,
you know, I wish I had hair like that. Uh,
you know, I wish I had skin like that. I
wish I, oh that, she looks so good, and I
wouldn't look good at that. He looks so good in that,
I'm not even gonna try. When you catch your your
self looking, when you catch yourself drifting, when you catch
(20:05):
yourself looking and drifting in somebody else's direction, when you
catch yourself drifting over into someone else's lane, that's when
you say to yourself. And for some of us, I
think we should say it out loud, not loud enough
for everybody else to hear, but just loud enough to
stop us. That's when we say, ah, that's chasing the wind.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
That's chasing the wind. No no, no, no, no, Ah, not
gonna buy that.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
That's just chasing the wind. Keep going, Ah, that's just
chasing the wind, chasing the wind. And I don't chase
the wind. So I want us to say this out loud. Together,
Both of these phrases you're ready, Here we go. That's
chasing the wind one more time. That's chasing the wind.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
And I don't chase the win. Do you mean? Come on?
Speaker 1 (20:51):
This isn't a Christian religious thing. This is just the
thing thing. Do you want to spend the rest of
your life chasing the wind?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
No? Why? Because there's no wind.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
In chasing the wind, there's no win in comparison.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
There's no trophy, there's no finish line, there's no there's
no I did it. You did what? I don't know.
I just did it. I know there's no win.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Okay, there's always faster, cute or smaller, younger, a hipper,
I mean bigger. It's chasing the wind. And come on,
I don't know you personally, but I know this. Your
life is too valuable, and your life is too short,
and your time is too valuable for you to waste
any of it.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Chasing the wind.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
So the moment, those emotions, those feelings of inadequacy and
I'm not rich enough, and I didn't measure up to
what my parents thought of all that. Who's that's chasing
the wind?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
And I don't chase the wind. Now.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Fortunately Solomon's not through because he knows there's another side
of this, and he knows what some of us are thinking,
because the whole idea of not chasing the wind is
not an invitation to be passive. In fact, I remember
Solomon wrote this. Solomon accomplished more than you will accomplish
in your whole life. And I'm not trying to put
you down. I'm just saying, like he was the king
of a nation. Okay, he had endless resources, he built
a temple. You can still, you know, go see the
(21:57):
base of the temple. I mean, he's an amazing person.
So he wasn't passive. He wasn't like I just live
and let live.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
It didn't matter.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
You live today and gone tomorrow. And he said some
things like that in Ecclesiastes. But in terms of his
life personally, he accomplished a great deal. So here's what
he says. He says, I don't take this to it
an unhealthy extreme. Fools, Fools fold their hands and ruin themselves.
Fools say, well, you know what, since I can't keep up,
Since everybody's better than me, since everybody has more talent
(22:26):
than me, since everybody had a better family, Since ever,
since everybody else, I'm just I'm just not.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Even gonna try.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Pelmus says, no, no, only a fool does that being
unproductive is not the answer. So he brings in this
next verse, this is so powerful. It's like, if you
don't ever read the Bible, you should read the Bible.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
In fact, start with what Solomon wrote.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
If you, in fact, if you're not a Christian, you're
not into the Jesus thing.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Hey, Jesus wasn't born for a long time. Start with Solomon.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
He was just a king. And these are just wise sayings.
It's just that they're found in the Bible, which which
is great. And here's what he says.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Next.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
He says, so he brings these two extremes together. He's like, look,
don't spend your life chasing the wind, and don't fold
your hands and go, oh well, why try. Don't spend
your life chasing the wind and trying to keep up
with people that don't even know you're trying to keep
up with them images on the screen. And at the
same time, don't just throw up your.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Hands and give up.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
And he brings them together in this next statement that's
so powerful. Some of you perhaps just need to memorize
the statement. He says this better. I love this better.
One handful with tranquility, then two handfuls with toil and
chasing after the wind.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
And that great. You're like, I don't even know what
it means.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
I know, I'm gonna explain it a minute, but it
is great, So just take Okay, but look at the
imagery of this. He says, it's better to have one
handful with tranquility, which rubs us the wrong way in
our culture because our culture isn't about one. Our culture
is about two. Our culture is about more. If I
had four hands, I'd have four handfuls, you know. I
mean it's all about more, more and more. He says, Okay,
(23:54):
I have more than all of you said. Just shut
up and listen for a second. I'm telling you one
handful with tranquility, one hand will with tranquility is better
than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Tranquility means satisfaction.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Tranquility means you drive home at night and you go
into your apartment, or you go into your house and.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
You're fine.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Tranquility means you visit your your friend, or your your
older brother, or even your younger brother, or your older
sister or younger sister, and they live in this big
old house, you know, and they got a gate.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
You gotta gage, you, hey, can I can? I commit?
Speaker 1 (24:29):
It's your brother and they have to beat you know,
let you in their gage, you know, you know, and
then you drive home to wherever you live, and you
know what tranquility is. Tranquility is. I'm so happy for them,
and it doesn't bother me. I'm so happy for them,
it doesn't bother me. I'm so happy for her, it
doesn't bother me.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
You got into your your your grad school.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
That's so great, and you got into the school I
wanted to go to. I'm I'm you know what. Upon
a time that would have bothered me so much. I'm
not even sure we could be friends. But I've learned
that one handful with tranquility, of tranquility is better than
two handfuls of striving and chasing. Here's the thing. We
(25:14):
assume more is better. That's what we're taught every single day.
We assume more is better, But chasing more always leaves
us wanting more.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
So here's his point. This is why it's so powerful.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Less is actually more when the less you hold is
what you were created for. That less is actually more
when the less you hold is what you were designed,
what you were created for, what you were born to
do better one handful of tranquility than grasping and striving
(25:50):
and pretending and competing. Then he goes on, he said,
let me tell you something else I saw while we're
talking about it. This is so great Again, he said,
I saw something meaningless under the sun.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Well, tell us what it is. This is fascinating Solomon.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
There was a man all alone. He had neither son
nor brother, to which we're like, so what. But see,
in this culture, if you didn't have a son and
you didn't have a brother, then you had no one
to leave your estate to and your wealth to. Or
even if you didn't have much, you didn't have anybody
to leave anything to, because in ancient times women could
not inherit anything. So here's a guy who's been working
(26:26):
hard and has something to show for it, but he
doesn't have anyone to leave it to. And then Solomon
says this there was no end to his toil. In
other words, he was just getting after it. Yet his
eyes were not content with his wealth. So he was
working hard and he was getting more but you know,
more leads to more, and bigger leads to bigger, and
better leads to better. And he's just getting after getting
(26:46):
after getting after it. And then he finally, this guy
stops and asks a question that some of you've never asked.
And I'm telling you, I wish i'd asked this question
much earlier in my life. I fact, if I could
sit down with you and you're, you know, some of
your fifth twenty thirty years younger, forty years younger than me,
I don't know how old Joe, I would say. You
know what, if you'll begin to ask yourself this question
(27:07):
early on, it will help you, It will make it
will you will learn to be content with one handful
of tranquility, and it won't. You won't be content like
you want to accomplish anything. You will accomplish all you
were born to accomplish, but you'll do it with peace
and tranquility. Because here's a question this guy forgot to
ask that most of us forget to ask. And here's
the question. It's so powerful that's Alma says, he forgot
(27:28):
to ask. For whom am I toiling? He finally asked
the question. I mean, he's been going on and on
and on year after year, and it's like he's going,
wait a minute, what who am I doing this for?
Who am I doing this with? And who am I
doing this for? What am what am I trying to prove?
And who am I trying to prove it to? Now,
(27:49):
this is a hard question, and I had to wrestle
this one to the ground many years ago. That's why
I just would love you know, if we were sitting
down over coffee, I would say, this is this is a.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Really big deal.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
And the younger you are, the more powerful, and the
more time you have to live this out. But it's
never too late, because there's an answer to this question,
whether you've asked the question or not, and whether you
know the answer or not, there's an answer to the question.
Why are you doing this? Why are you striving? Why
are you toiling? Why are you pushing? Why are you
(28:18):
gritting your teeth?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
What? Who is it for? And for some of you
do you know who it's for?
Speaker 1 (28:24):
You're competing with your brother, you're competing with a sister,
some of you are trying to live up to your
mother's expectations. And let me just tell you something I
don't know your mother, but you'll you'll never win with
your mother. You won't. You know how I know it
because if you could have won, you would have won.
(28:45):
If it's going been going on a year after you
after year, and she's this, and you're just trying and
try and trying. Okay, why some of you are trying
to please your father. Some of you are trying to
make your father smile and finally give you that hug.
And some of you your father passed away and you're
still striving, and you've never stopped and asked this powerful question.
(29:07):
Wait a minute, what why am I doing this? Who
am I doing this for? Who's approval am I competing for?
And do they even know? And do they even care?
And would it even matter if they did? So, here's
(29:29):
a question they were moving on for whom to use
his word, for whom are you toiling? And let me
just give your heads up. If you say I'm doing
it for me, M probably not. Well I'm just doing
it for me, oh maybe. But before you just go
there and move on, this is a question you need
to wrestle to the ground for whom are you toiling?
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Really? Because for some of you, when you are able
to answer that question.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
It will free you up to be content with one
handful of tranquility instead of two hands.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Of if only, if only? In when he goes on,
and why this is so amazing?
Speaker 1 (30:09):
This is the same fictitious this this, this guy that
Solomon knew that sort of represents, you know, people, humanity.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
And why am I depriving myself of enjoyment? This guy?
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Solomon says. The thing about this guy, he accomplished so much,
he has no one to leave it to, and he's
not even enjoying his stuff. He's so bound up with
more stuff and chasing the wind. It's like, wait a minute,
who am I doing this for? And why is it
I'm not even enjoying the fruit of my labor. It's
because he'd never answered the question, and why am I
doing this to begin with? And perhaps you aren't enjoying
(30:43):
your life either, And let me tell you what.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
If you're not enjoying your life, no one else will.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Okay, if you're raising kids, if you're not enjoying your life,
they're not enjoying your life.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
For some of the some of you, I'm getting a little personal.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
The reason that you're your relationships are just kind of repeat,
re repeat same thing.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
In it's the same way.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
If you're not enjoying your life, the people that you
date aren't going to enjoy you.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
They're just not.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
If you're not enjoying your life, the people that are
closest to your friends, they won't enjoy you either. They
will sense your angst. In fact, they may have tried
to tell you, and you're like, there's.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Nothing wrong with me. I'm just ambitious. I'm just a
goal setter. Well, no, you're something else.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
But I can't say that because Andy said, don't say
everything that's true. Just make sure what you say is true.
So I'm not going to really tell you what anyway.
So and then there's this okay, just to really if
there's not if you don't feel guilty enough, are motivated enough.
I hope you're motivated think about this.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Isn't it true?
Speaker 1 (31:37):
I don't think you could argue with this. Somewhere in
the world tonight there are a billion people, or let's
just be conservative, somewhere in the world tonight are half
a billion people that would look at your life and
your circumstances and your.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Body and where you live and what you drive.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
And who you know and they would consider you one
of the luckiest people on earth, but you don't. And
do you know why you don't, because you don't know
why you're toiling and striving, and you don't know who
you're doing it for. One handful with peace and tranquility
(32:19):
is so much better than two handfuls of grit, intention
and a lack of peace. This too, he says. I mean,
he's so honest, This too, is meaningless. It's a miserable
business you will never find. You just have to trust
(32:44):
me on this, or just figure it out for yourself
or think it through.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
You're smart, you know this.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
You will never be who you were born to be
as long as you are looking over your shoulder at
anybody else, because the energy you expanded and the energy
I expand looking left and right and over my shoulder,
that is energy God gave us to do what God
has called us and created us to do. And if
(33:09):
you're a Christian, as I said earlier, you'll never discover
God's purpose for your life. You are so aware of
God's purpose, perhaps for other people's life, but you will
never discover God's purpose for your life as long as
you're distracted by someone else's success. Now, I grew up
(33:29):
some of you know, I grew up with a very
successful father, and in some circles, I grew up with
a very famous father. And I had to figure this
out from myself. And I wish I had asked some
of these questions much earlier in my life. And I
wish I had learned one handful of tranquility is so
much better than two hands of striving and chasing after
(33:51):
the women. And I'll tell you somebody else who had
to learn it in a similar way, as well as
somebody that all of you've heard of, and some of
you know something.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
About him, some of you virtually nothing about him.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
His name is Joel Ostein, right, Joel Oastin's also a pastor.
And I love Joel's story because I maybe it's because
I'm a preacher's kid and he was a preacher's kid
and he said something.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
I read his story. Then. I've only met him.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
One time, and we had one conversation and he was
with the group and he told his story and I
wrote something down. I'm going to show you what he
wrote down in just a minute. But his story, the
thirty second version of his story is he dropped out
of college and went back home to work for his
dad editing video. His dad was a pastor on TV
and he would edit his dad's video. So that's what
he did. He did not an extrovert. Introvert, just wanted
(34:34):
to edit video for his daddy, as he calls me,
his daddy. And then his daddy got sick, was put
in the hospital. They didn't have anybody to preach one Sunday,
and so his family said, Joel, you need to preach,
and he's like, I don't preach, I edit video. He'd
never preached in his life. They said, no, you need
to preach, and so Joel. So his dad called him
from the hospital. He said, and he said, Joel, I
just need you to preach for me Sunday.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Everybody will love you. You're my son.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Theyn't understand. He's like, Daddy, I don't have any sermons.
His dad said, okay, Joel, huge pick one of my
sermons that you really like a lot, and just repreach that.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
He said.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Two days later, I called my dad in the hospital
and sai, Dad, I can't find any of your sermons
that I really like a lot.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
But he finally picked one and he preached one and.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
It was terrible. It's terrible. The next week, his father
passed away and his family came to him and said, Joel,
we think God has his hand on you. You're a
pastor and preach at this journey. He's like, I've preached
one sermon.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
And it was terrible.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
And Joel talked about how he tried to preach like
his dad. He said, he said, you're not going to
believe this. He said, I actually wore my father's shoes
for the first few months that I preach, trying to
figure this out. And then he said something I wrote down.
And regardless of what you know about Joel Ostein, and
(35:50):
regardless of what you think about Joel Ostein, I don't
want you to miss this because this is so powerful.
In fact, this next statement is why you've heard of
Joel Ostein. He worked for his dad in pret and
See for seventeen years.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
This is what he said.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
He said, Then it dawned on me. I have to
run my race. I can't run my daddy's race or
any other preacher's race. And he's been running his race
ever since. And here's why I tell you that story. Look,
come here, you have to learn to run your race
(36:26):
and quit chasing the wind.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Back to Solomon, here's what he says.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
A heart this is the entire statement that I gave
you the second part of at the beginning. Solomon says this,
A heart at peace gives life to the body, but
envy rots the bones. You cannot I don't care how
rich you are, poor you are, how good looking you are,
where you live, what you're you're connected to. You cannot
(36:59):
compare your way to peace. You cannot compare your way
to peace. You cannot compare your way to tranquility. You
can't win chasing the win God has given you. God
has given you a race to run, and you need
(37:22):
to get in your lane, and you need to focus,
and you need to stay there. Look to other people
for inspiration and celebrate their success. You look to them
for inspiration, but you don't look to them for imitation.
When you see somebody knocking it out of the park,
maybe somebody living your dream, somebody driving your car, somebody
going to your school getting your degree, you celebrate them.
You say, I'm so happy for you. But I am
(37:44):
running my race and I am staying in my lane.
I'm not gonna waste an ounce of my energy resenting you.
I'm not gonna waste an ounce of my life being
jealous of you, because I'm running my race in the
lane that God has put me in. Jordan Peterson in
twelve Rolls Life of Fabulous book, he says it this way.
I love this quote. He says, compare yourself. Compare yourself
(38:06):
to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else
is today.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
That is great advice, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
If you've got to compare Compare yourself to who you
were yesterday, Because if who you were yesterday is not
as who you not as great as who you are today,
then you're making progress. Compare yourself to yourself, but don't
waste your life and caund waste your energy comparing yourself
to other people. Count your blessings, not your neighbors. You
know what, when you begin counting your blessings and you
(38:33):
drop it into the context of how some people live
in this world, You'll wake up every single day grateful.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
You'll go to bed every.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Single night grateful every single night, every single morning, you
will be grateful when you start counting your blessings rather
than everybody else's. Here's the thing, please, because you only
get one shot. Don't miss the life. Don't miss what life.
Don't miss the life God has for you, and don't
(38:59):
miss us what life has for you.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
You will never experience.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
You will never experience your life fully.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
You will never.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Experience your life fully until you embrace what is right
in front of you. I've done it the right way.
I've done it the wrong way. I wish I'd learned
this earlier. You can begin today. So when your emotions
start drifting, when your emotions start drifting, when your emotions
(39:32):
start drifting, when your emotions start drifting and start getting
the best of you, you stop and you just declare
to yourself. I say, you declare it out loud. I
will not chase the wind. I will run my race
and my lane. I will not chase the wind. That's
good for you, congratulations, that's great. I will not chase
(39:53):
the wind. I will run my race and my lane.
And if you do, you will become the person God
created you to be. But if you aren't willing to
take my advice, and if you aren't willing to take
(40:14):
Solomon's advice, and if you're not willing to take Jordan
Peterson's advice, then, I think you should at least take
it from Bruce. Find your lane and run in it, because,
after all, tramps like us, baby, we were born to
run
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