Donald Miller's Blog, page 12

What I Learned From My Big Brother About Those Who Hurt Me

Recently, my older brother was in a bike accident. He wasn’t going to tell me about it (he hates to draw attention to himself) but I heard the story from someone else and, of course, had a thousand questions.

Photo Credit: Leo Hidalgo, Creative Commons

What happened? Are you okay? Were you wearing a helmet?

He was fine, he said. It wasn’t that big of a deal. But I kept pressing him to tell me the rest of the story, until finally he did.

The story went like this.

He’d been biking to church when a driver, who had her left turn signal on, turned right instead. She didn’t check her mirrors before she turned, and since my brother was on the right hand side of her, she turned right into him.

He went up on her hood, and then down on the ground, although he says he doesn’t remember that part very well.

He was wearing a helmet, thank goodness, and wasn’t badly injured. But his bike was mangled, his bag was ripped, and his arm was a little scraped-up.

As expected, traffic and people lurched to a halt in that moment to make sure my brother was okay. The driver of the vehicle was young—a Drivers Ed student. Her instructor was in the passenger seat, and leapt out of the vehicle immediately, apologizing and asking a dozen questions.

Even bystanders stopped and checked to make sure he was okay.

“What about the driver?” I asked my brother as he told me the story.

“She had her head against the steering wheel,” he explained, “just sobbing.”

What my brother did next doesn’t surprise me because he is my brother, and I’ve known him to do similar things. But this is an image that will last in my mind forever, and that immediately shifted my thinking about what to do when someone hurts me.

With all the traffic and people still swirling around him, my brother asked the instructor: What’s her name?

“Candace.” The man responded.

And with that, my brother left his broken bike and ripped bag on the sidewalk where they had moved them, and walked to the other side of the car. He knelt down next to the driver-side window, and said, quietly, to the still-weeping young woman: “Candace, it’s okay. Accidents happen. Mistakes are how we learn. Thank goodness everyone is okay.”

“I’m okay. You’re okay. We’re all okay.”

I love that: “I’m okay. You’re okay. We’re all okay.” And I love the image of my brother, the victim in this circumstance, kneeling next to the person who hurt him, who acted carelessly and thoughtlessly, who could have easily taken his life if things had been even slightly different, saying:

“Candace, it’s okay. You’re okay, and I’m okay. We’re all okay.”

Now, I get the analogy can be a little sticky.

Because not everyone who hurts us in life is as remorseful as Candace. And not every “close call” turns out as smoothly as this one with my brother. But it just made me think: This is really the hope of forgiveness, isn’t it?

That, even in light of our biggest wounds, our closest calls, our most painful experiences, we might be able to say, to ourselves, and to those who hurt us—eventually…

“It’s okay. I’m okay, you’re okay. We’re all okay.”

My brother’s story changes me—the image of him kneeling there on the ground, hand on Candace’s shoulder, even as she is sobbing. It reminds me to see that I’m okay, even when I make a huge mistake. Even when I hurt someone. It reminds me to pick my head up, and to choose to stop crying.

It reminds me to apologize, learn and then keep living, keep “driving.”

And it reminds me, in the most beautiful way I could imagine, that it is possible to look into the face of someone who hurts me and say:

“It’s okay. I’m okay, you’re okay. We’re all okay.”

The Single Most Powerful Question You Can Ask

When novelists sit down to write a narrative, there is a question they ask themselves in order to create exciting and meaningful stories, and that same question can also create a more exciting and meaningful life. That question is: “What if?”

J.R.R. Tolkien once asked the question “What if” there existed a place called Middle Earth, and “What if” Middle Earth were under threat? 

Every good story begins with some form of this question, and so does every life.

Whenever a novel starts to drag, the writer simply has to ask this question, and suddenly life gets exciting again.

Photo Credit: Amanda Tipton, Creative Commons

“What if” there were a car accident, “what if” my protagonist won the lottery, what if my protagonist came home and his wife had left with all the furniture? A series of these questions will dislodge whatever fascinating thing is going to happen next in the story.

It works in life, too.

Now to be sure, you don’t have the power to win the lottery and I don’t recommend getting in a car wreck, but within limits, the question What if? can radically change our story and our lives.

Several years ago, I asked the question, “What if the 360,000 churches in America could each have a mentoring program”, and out of that question came one of the most exciting adventures in my life, The Mentoring Project.

Bill Hybles once asked “What if” there were a church in this field? Rick Warren asked “What if” we could bring peace to the continent of Africa? Out of these questions came stories that have positively affected millions.

“What if” you asked yourself a series of these questions?

“What if” you got out a yellow pad and wrote down a few story turns that you could engage?

“What if” you ran a marathon?
“What if” you renewed your marriage vows?
“What if” you quit your job?
“What if” you brought home a puppy today?
“What if” you and your family adopted a child?

If your story has gotten boring, perhaps it’s time to ask yourself the “what if” question.

Try this, in the comment box, just brainstorm five what if questions as fast as you can. Try to to take the suggestion seriously, but do it fast. What will begin to happen is you’ll begin to dream, you’ll stop thinking of life as stagnant, and you’ll be reminded that life, for the most part, is what you make of it.

God Has Chosen You—Not Someone Else

I do all of my best thinking on Tom Sawyer Island at Disneyland.

Photo Credit: Anna Fox, Creative Commons

There’s a picnic table at the end of a little pier right across from the pirate ship. I suppose most people think this place is just a prop because there are a couple wooden kegs marked “gunpowder” and some pirate paraphernalia hung over the railings.

But it’s not just a prop to me; it’s my office.

There are no admission requirements at Tom Sawyer Island.

It doesn’t matter how tall or short you are, old or young, religious or not.

There are no lines on Tom Sawyer Island; it can be whatever you want it to be. You can do countless things there. Most of them involve running and jumping and using your creativity and imagination. It’s a place where you can go and just do stuff.

In that way, it’s a place that mirrors life well—at least the opportunity to do much with our lives.

But I’ll tell you why I really like this place.

Because a guy named Disney had a hair-brained scheme to make a magical world where people could go and feel free.

And it worked. And if he could do that, I figure I could be a lawyer maybe or write a book or work with the justice system in Uganda.

I come here to remind myself we get to make the world we want, in large part.

Somewhere in each of us, I believe there’s a desire for a place like Tom Sawyer Island, a place where the stuff of imagination, whimsy, and wonder are easier to live out—not just think about or put off until “next time.” This is a weighty thing to think about on my island, but I often consider what I’m tempted to call the greatest lie of all time.

And that lie can be bound up in two words: someone else.

On Tom Sawyer Island, I reflect on God, who didn’t choose someone else to express His creative presence to the world, who didn’t tap the rock star or the popular kid to get things done. He chose you and me.

We are the means, the method, the object, and the delivery vehicles.

God can use anyone, for sure. If you can shred on a Fender or won “Best Personality,” you’re not disqualified—it just doesn’t make you more qualified.

You see, God usually chooses ordinary people like us to get things done.

As I sit on my island, it becomes clear we need to stop plotting the course and instead just land the plane on our plans to make a difference by getting to the “do” part of faith. That’s because love is never stationary. In the end, love doesn’t just keep thinking about it or keep planning for it. Simply put: love does.

* This is an excerpt from Bob Goff’s book, Love Does. He lives in San Diego, but this was probably written on Tom Sawyer Island.

What to Do When Life Hasn’t Turned Out How You Wanted

What happens when your story hasn’t turned out like you wanted? When you feel there is a part of your story that you wish you could erase or edit out somehow yet no matter how hard you try, it’s there reminding you … accusing you.

I can feel good about where I am in my story and then, out of nowhere, something reminds me of harmful decisions I made in the past and shame hits me like the turkey buzzard that flew into my car on the interstate this summer. Feathers exploded 50 feet into the air like a giant pillow fight and cost me $2,500.00 in damage, though the bird fared a lot worse.

One of the most painful things about looking back is the realization that those decisions reflected on who I was, or the greater fear, who I am.

It’s difficult to see ourselves truthfully.

It means facing the dark part of our hearts. The reward from it brings us to a place of humility and to feel the need for mercy, which is exactly where you want to be when you are rewriting your story.

Having done everything “right” does not make your life a success.

In fact there are two ways you and I can be alienated from God: one is by being very bad and the other by being extremely good (from The Prodigal God by Tim Keller). Seeking to feel good or be good, both seek independence from God.

Instead let the events of your life, whatever they are, bring you to see your absolute dependence on God, who has always used people with messy lives to do significant things.

If you (or someone you know) struggle with feeling not good enough because of things you did or things done to you, below are some steps that helped me find freedom and the courage to rewrite my story.

I hope they are helpful for you.

1. Change can only begin from where I am, not where I pretend to be. Instead of avoiding that part of your life, step into it and write about it. Journal about what you felt, what you did, what you thought, maybe even the “craziness” of it. Explore your actions with honesty, not denial. God can do amazing things with a heart of confession.

2. Find someone safe and exchange being “real.” What we long for more than anything else is to be truly known; yet what terrifies us more than anything else is to be truly known. Shame is healed when we share who we really are (and have been) with each other and find acceptance.

3. “Who is this guy?” Start reading Matthew – John in the New Testament just to get to know who Jesus is. Maybe even begin with Matthew chapter 5 and imagine sitting on a hilltop hearing Jesus begin to talk. Listen for the compassion He has for people with broken stories throughout those books. When I began to see His eyes of compassion I began to trust His grace.

4. Avoid comparing yourself. When I compare myself with others there is always someone bigger or smaller; I’ll feel resentment or arrogance depending on where I look.

5. Pray. This is hard when we feel shame; we often avoid God instead. Literally get on your knees and pray that God will use your story in the lives of other people with messy stories. Your “broken” story may be the only one someone else can hear when they know you understand what they’re going through.

6. Make amends to people you have harmed, if possible, once you have done some of the things above and you can see yourself more clearly. However, don’t do it until you can let go of what you want from the person. Some very good ideas on how to do this can be found in 12 step recovery material.

Albert Schweitzer said, “The tragedy is not that a man dies, the tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.”

Live!

How to Be A Good Dad

The other day my 5 year-old son came to me with a serious question. His voice was low, clear, and calm. I could tell he had something on his mind. He said,

“Dad, will you teach me how to be a dad?”

Photo Credit: amanda tipton, Creative Commons

“Of course,” I told him. “I love who you are becoming and you will make a great dad one day.” Still looking concerned and apparently disregarding my encouragement, he said, “but will you teach me?” He was looking for something more than generalized reassurance.

He wanted specifics. He wanted a mentor.

Holding him close and matching his tone, I answered him directly, “I will teach you how to be a dad.” With that he smiled, left the room, and returned to the jigsaw puzzle he had been working on.

My beaming wife had been watching this exchange.

She smiled and told me that he had been waiting all day to ask me that question. We laughed at the simplicity of his earnest question and we were struck by the deep meaning of that moment.

The truth is that we strategically think about teaching our kids to read, solve math problems, fix engines, and ace college entrance exams.

But where do kids learn how to be an adult?

Where do they learn to be a dad or mom, a husband or wife?

After all, those are some of life’s most important roles.

The reality is that most of us pick up our patterns for these roles by default from those around us. Some of us have had good examples and others have had bad examples.

None of us have had perfect examples.

Regardless of what was modeled for us or whether someone intentionally mentored us, we get to decide afresh each day how we will serve in these roles.

Over the next several weeks, my son asked me the same question over and over again: “Will you teach me how to be a dad?”

I shifted my language with him.

We began to have “Dad Lessons” where we would talk about how dads love their families:

We washed dishes together—not just to clean plates but also to love and appreciate the cook.

We paused the game we were playing to listen to his sister’s story—not because we were tired of the game but to give her our undivided attention.

We got up early to buy donuts on Saturday morning—not just because we wanted a treat but to delight the family with a surprise.

We dealt with conflict—not because conflict energizes us but to honor truth and peace.

I would tell him, “This is what dads do.”

These “Dad Lessons” didn’t cause our family rhythms to change much. We just began to talk differently about them. We began to infuse the ordinary and simple aspects of family life with the labels that allowed them to be processed by our youngest.

My failures and mistakes also provided opportunities for me to let him know what dads shouldn’t do.

On one occasion when I apologized for being insensitive and told him that dads should be more aware.

He told me, “That is okay. You are still a good dad.”

The truth is that my kids will not have a perfect example of how to be a parent. In fact, I hope they will be far better at parenting than I am. But for this season . . . for these years . . . I have the sacred trust of being their mentor.

Over time I found the “Dad Lessons” having an impact on me.

In the most unanticipated way, my son’s questions about wanting to learn to be a dad were making me a better dad.

In life’s most important roles, we are not limited by the good or bad training we received growing up.

Our default patterns may exist, but we have agency to choose which ones are worth expressing and which ones should be jettisoned.

Regardless of our age or position, I wonder how we might change if we begin to intentionally think about the ways we are mentoring those around us.

Why Chasing Fame Doesn’t Work to Build Your Career

One of the unsaid promises of social media is: you can be famous.

If you get enough followers, fans, likes, retweets, then you can make your book, blog, movie, band, idea – go. So we focus on making big enough tribes, creating big enough platforms, so our idea will fly.

We delve into: Twitter – Facebook – Instagram – Pinterest – YouTube – MySpace – LinkedIn – SnapChat – Vimeo – Google Plus – WordPress – Tumblr.

We work hard on our personal brand.

Squeeze into skinny jeans.

Build our street cred.

Get head shots.

But is it working?

We create clever titles for ourselves, then humbly put them in our social media description: Fashionista. International Word Maven. Social Media Expert Pro. World Renowned Superstar. Others go a different route to fame and become qualified critics. If we criticize vigorously enough, we think, maybe they’ll pay attention and allow us a guest seat at their table of fame.

Our great temptation as creatives is to focus on hype and not our creation.

When we lose this focus, we become peddlers of hollow ideas. This is the myth of the empty platform. All smoke and fluff, pomp and title. No substance. Platforms are great, but once you’re standing up there, you really need something to say.

Don’t buy into the myth. Instead…

Relentlessly fight for your idea.

Grow it. Protect it. Draw a Police Do Not Cross line around it.

Do everything to become better at your craft. Go to seminars. Read books. Develop your talent. Be teachable. Find a coach. A mentor. Don’t get diverted or distracted. Stay on course.

Steve Jobs asks this question, “You know how you see a show car, and it’s really cool, and then four years later you see the production car and it sucks? And you think, what happened? They had it! They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

What happened is this:

The designers came up with a great idea.

Then they took it to the engineers and the engineers said, ‘Nah, we can’t do that. That’s impossible.’ The idea gets worse. Then the manufacturing people say, ‘We can’t build that.’ And it gets a lot worse.”

The key, according to Jobs, is to get your idea from concept car to the conveyor belt. This takes ferocious resolve. Your idea won’t cross the finish line if you lose focus. Or if you are focused on hype. Don’t buy into the myth of the empty platform. Don’t tell people they should love your idea. Build the iPhone.

Then let them fall in love with the little robot you put in their pocket.

Now is a great time to start. “Amateurs,” according to Stephen King, “sit and wait for inspiration. The rest of us just get up and go to work.”

When Writing a Book, Start With Your Own Story

If you want to write a book about physics, you’ll have to know a lot about physics. And the same goes for psychology and botany. But to write a humane book, be it fiction or memoir, all you really need to know is your own story.

We read books for different reasons, sometimes to learn a craft or for a perspective on current events, but most of the books most people read aren’t approached with a specific ambition at all. What we want most is to not feel alone, to allow somebody to rummage inside our minds and souls and point out all the ways we are alike.

To write this sort of book, you only need to know your own story.

Like a painter, a writer writes with colors and textures. Sure there’s form, and it helps to know how a story works, but the real genius lay in the ability to remain human and to connect with other humans.

Here are a few of the colors and textures to keep in mind as you write:

1. Fear. What makes you afraid? Fear is the most dominant human emotion, and it’s the seed of so many other emotions: jealousy, rage, insecurity and detachment. A good writer knows this and won’t mistake one for the other. And so in your work, mine what it is you’re afraid of. Are you afraid of losing control? Are you afraid of death? Are you afraid to succeed? The more you can paint with that color, the more people will recognize themselves in your work and the less they’ll feel alone.

2. Vulnerability. Even if you’re writing fiction, you should feel like you’re telling secrets. And they should be deep, dark secrets you’d only tell your most trusted friend. Remember, when we write we are becoming the temporal companion of the reader, and if we want them to trust us, we have to give up our secrets.

3. Love. I know it sounds mushy, but it helps to actually love your reader. While a non-fiction diatribe may work to insist a theological point, a person who doesn’t love their reader will never write a classic. It’s not been done. Never write from a defensive posture. If you do, you’ll never be able to be vulnerable or honestly talk about your fears, and your reader will smell it out and move on. If it helps, imagine writing a story for your closest friend or significant other.

4. Don’t apologize. Your story may frustrate some people, but if they don’t accept you as you are, they really wouldn’t have been your friend in the first place. If you’re writing a memoir, you don’t have to apologize for drinking too much or bingeing on ice cream. Just report the events like a loving journalist. Nobody gets to steal your humanity. Speak from the heart.

When it’s all said and done, any human being can write a very human book. But of course, the trick is to become human again. Critics, scolders and conditional lovers can have you living in fear. Forgive them. We’ve all done it to each other. And rather than return evil for evil, let’s just walk gently with each other in our writing and in our lives.

How Your Possessions Are Affecting Your Heart

For most of my life, I have lived under the impression that my actions will follow my heart—that the things I treasured most would be reflected by my investments. As the saying goes, “You can tell what’s important to someone by looking at their calendar and checkbook.”

While I think there is some truth in that statement, over the past few years of pursuing minimalism, I have begun to notice that the inverse is probably even more true.

It is not necessarily that my actions follow the desires of my heart. Instead, I find that my heart appears naturally drawn to the places where I have invested most.

It is a subtle distinction, but an important one.

Jesus said it like this, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Notice in his phrasing, it is our heart that follows our treasure.

This principle was profoundly etched in my mind the day my family and I went grocery shopping and left the store to find a fresh, large, white scrape across the passenger side of our maroon minivan.

The minivan was far from new. Yet, there was an immediate pit that emerged in my stomach over the wrong that had been committed. The driver kindly left us with no insurance or contact information, just a large noticeable scrape down the side of our vehicle. The distress was strengthened by the fact that I knew too well I was too cheap to ever get it repaired. The unsightly scratch would likely remain over the course of the van’s life.

My wife and I drove away in silence.

I began to reflect on the scratch and more importantly, how the incident had impacted me internally.

I found it interesting to consider the fact that if this same scrape had been left on my bicycle, I would not have been nearly as upset. And I couldn’t help but wonder why that was the case. Why did the action cut so deep into my stomach and heart? Why was a white scrape on my minivan causing such a heart-level response?

I realized I was so upset about this scrape because our vehicle was such a large investment. I had invested considerable money into buying it and time and energy caring for it. I wouldn’t mind if my son’s skateboard got a new scratch because… well, I didn’t have nearly as much treasure invested into it. But my vehicle was a huge investment (probably our second biggest) and because of that, my heart naturally gravitated toward it.

Where our treasures are, there our hearts will be also.

Our hearts always follow our greatest investments.

Whether it be our car, our house, our career, or our investment portfolio. We literally tie our hearts to certain things by the sheer amount of investment we put into them.

Unfortunately, too many of us are tying our hearts to the wrong things.

We are devoting our lives and tying our hearts to material possessions that will never last or bring us true joy. We shop for bigger houses, faster cars, trendier clothes and cooler technology. Subsequently, we invest so much of our time and energy into caring for them. But lasting fulfillment can never be tied to things that are temporal by nature.

Instead, we ought to invest our money, time, and lives into things that are truly important. Invest into your family, your friends, spiritual pursuits, or the causes that you believe in. As you do, you’ll notice your heart naturally begins to be drawn to them more and more.

The allure of materialism is hard to break.

As long as we live on earth surrounded by material possessions, keeping them in proper perspective is going to be a struggle. But we can begin to break its fascination in our lives by reminding ourselves that we are investing more than our dollars into them. We are tying our very hearts to them as well.

Invest your treasure into the things that matter most. Your heart will soon follow.

How I’m Healing My Anger Towards The Church

I joined a life group a few months ago, even though it was a life group. (Call it what you like: life group, small group, community group, growth group.)

I can’t be the only one who’s a little conflicted about these, right?

I want to love them, but so often we show up with pasted-on smiles and fancy shoes instead of sweat pants and a full range of emotions.

So far, this group has been good.

We come because we want community, because we need to explore questions of faith, or because we are looking for a reason to share carrot sticks and hummus on a Thursday night. Maybe we all need somewhere to practice being brave.

We agreed at the beginning that we wanted to create a safe space for vulnerability, a place where saying real, true things was the norm.

One of the first weeks, the discussion questions went something like this:

What are you angry about—with church or with God?

What are you hurt over?

I don’t have answers to all the questions in life, but you guys, I have answers to those questions.

I’m angry about the ways I’ve seen churches prioritize programs and policies over actual people. I’m angry about the fact that some churches have let the Ways of This Church supplant the upside-down, least-is-first, make-room-at-the-table Way of Jesus.

I’m hurt over the ways I’ve seen churches invest so much energy in being right that they forget to be love.

And I think it’s okay for me to feel that way.

I think it’s right and good to be disturbed by the ways our churches have harmed instead of helped. People of faith are allowed to have anger and hurt.

We don’t have to pretend we don’t.

Besides, just because people and systems have failed us, doesn’t mean that God has.

God can handle my anger. God can handle my hurt and my questions and even my doubts. They don’t cancel out my faith. God made us to be complex, nuanced beings, and God is even more mysterious than we are.

Do you know what happened in that women’s group?

Of course you do. You know what happens when we explore true, difficult things together.

We grew closer. Our relationships grew stronger. We became a kind of family because we had committed to see each other, to understand as best we could, and to love each other anyway.

And here’s the amazing thing: that’s what happens between us and God, too.

We’re always saying we want to grow in our relationship with God, aren’t we? Well, this is it. This is one of the ways we do that. We tell the truth. We say:

God, I don’t understand this. I am angry about that. Why does it work this way?

When we’re honest, when we bring our frustrations and our hurts and we lay them out in prayer, God is not surprised! God is actually already aware of these things, even if we’ve been afraid to say them out loud. Bringing them up is just the first step in bringing ourselves closer to God. When we look away, when we cover over our hurts, they can’t heal very well.

They need to be aired out, brought into the light.

We don’t tell the truth to be fixed, though, we tell the truth to be heard. We tell the truth to be connected. And we listen as a way of being love. (That’s why so many small groups fizzle, I think. Either the truth is missing, or the love is.)

Speak your truth, even the truths that are hard or confusing or inconvenient.

I think we were made to do exactly that, with God and with each other. That’s how we grow, and how we grow together. The carrot sticks are optional.

How Do Christians Know How to Vote?

The news is recapping presidential debates and local election statistics daily.  Flyers and billboards feature the faces of candidates and their slogans.  Our neighbors are sticking yard signs in their front lawns staking their political stance and to whom their vote belongs.

When we’re bombarded with political media messages and neighborly voting advice, how do we decide who to listen to?  

As Christians, how do we choose who to vote for?

Be informed. It’s important that we know information about local office and presidential candidates beyond what is shared on the evening news or what our friends tell us over coffee. Find out what platforms they stand on. Attend a local rally. Look into their past experience.

Know the facts so you can wear that “I Voted” sticker like a badge of honor.

Be praying. I found an old prayer from Derek Prince Ministries dating back to the 1980’s election.  It concluded with these instructions, “remember to pray, ask God to show you how to pray, remember to cast your vote and do not be afraid of the battle.”  One of the best tactics for effectively fighting for America in an election season is prayer. If we can pray for our country, God will reveal who we should elect to lead it.  

Your one vote may seem small, insignificant even.

However it’s a big part in the story that God is writing for America.  So start doing some research on who might fit as a leading character in this chapter for our country. And go to the polls prayerfully, believing God has something great in mind for the United States. 

In the 2016 election, your voice as a Christian matters so “cast your vote and do not be afraid of the battle.”