Donald Miller's Blog, page 27

Love is Unconditional. Relationships Aren’t.

Here’s an important part of the wonder of our humanity: Forced love is no love at all.

Photo Credit: Valeria Schettino, Creative Commons

Our Christian theology hasn’t always been great at recognizing this. In fact, it’s been a little detrimental to it. We have this idea of a God who forces us to love Him, or requires love from us.

That’s a philosophy we may have been fed, but in our hearts, we know better. Just think about your relationships with the people you love and trust. In all of those, you have the ability to say “no,” and so do they. Love is, for each of us, a choice. Choice is essential to the existence of love. It’s no different with our relationship with God.

But the ability to say no is profound and necessary.

It applies to everything—from how we relate to God, to each other, and even to ourselves. God has gone to great lengths to protect our ability to say no, because without it, love simply cannot exist. It would be programming.

I’m saying all this so you’ll understand what I mean when I say love is unconditional, but relationships aren’t.

It’s important to distinguish between love and relationships, because they’re not the same thing. Love is something offered to someone else, relationship is something two people share. And while we should always offer unconditional love, that love must always allow others to say “no.”

It must always be conditional to each individual person.

In my relationship with my children, there is never a question about my love for them. It’s unconditional. That love is not conditional upon their performance.

We understand that. We can feel that. We know that. But just because I love them all equally and unconditionally doesn’t mean I treat them all the same way. That’s essential. It’s one thing to say I love my children, but how I relate to them relates to who they are.

To use a radical example, let’s say I had a son who was abusing drugs. I would do everything in my power to stop him and help him. But if he, after all that, decided he did not want to have a relationship with me, our relationship would necessarily flex, because of my respect for the fact that he can do beautiful and terrible things.

The flow of our relationship is conditioned out of respect for the other.

In this example, my son is a person—not just an object who has to accept everything I offer. My love is unconditional, but the way I relate is conditional. That opens up a tapestry of possibilities that cannot be coerced with formulas and plans.

You have to see each relationship as unique and important, and respond accordingly.

Our oldest son, Chad, has three young children.

A few days ago, he received a phone call from a friend looking for advice about raising his own kids. Chad heard this friend out and then said, “I have some things to say—but two-thirds of everything I tell you won’t be true for you.”

I love that, because he’s saying there’s a beauty to each individual child that changes the rules—and as I’ve said many times on here, love always changes the rules.

How about you? Do you see times where God has given you the ability to say “no”?

How can you start loving the people in your life more unconditionally and relating to them more conditionally?

Should You Quit Your Job?

The Storyline Conference is coming and I already know one thing that I’m sure will happen. Somebody at the conference will come up to me and explain that they quit their job because they created a life plan using Storyline.

They’ll explain that they wanted a life of meaning and couldn’t do the same old thing anymore.

Another couple will come up to me (probably a few) who will explain that they adopted a child because of Storyline. And another will let me know they’re heading overseas into the mission field. My guess is somebody will tell me they started a church, or a business, or joined a rock band!

This is what I love about Storyline. It’s a wakeup call.

Storyline gives you a vision of what life could be and then a plan to radically change your own. And with so many inspirational speakers, you’ll have the push you need to make it all happen.

I have no idea what God is going to put on your heart at Storyline, but I don’t want you to miss it. In only a week the price of registration goes up. Will you make a plan to join us and come see what all the hype is about? I promise it’s the real thing. You’ll be inspired and equipped to live a life of deep meaning.

Register today to join us at Storyline. Don’t quit your job….yet!

Five Articles I Sent My Staff This Week

As a staff, we are committed to learning and growing, both professionally and personally. One of the ways we do that is by reading. Below are some of the most current things we’re reading together.

If you’re in need of something great to read this weekend, start here.

6 Commonalities Shared by Highly Intelligent People

via Lifehack

I loved this list and found it pretty descriptive of my staff. I think we can all stand to keep these six things in mind.

Designing Your Own Apprenticeship: How to Build A Team of Mentors

via Jeff Goins

What a great reminder for all of us: the responsibility for reaching your potential is up to you. This is great advice for how to surround yourself with people who will help you succeed.

One Bug You Want Your Office to Catch

via Jessica Stillman

It shouldn’t surprise any of us that humor can actually be useful in the workplace. This article made me feel very thankful for my staff, who make everyday at work fun.

Disappointment Makes You More Trusting

via Harvard Business Review

Disappointment is something we all must face in our lives. The good news is those who have faced disappointment tend to be more trusting and cooperative than those who haven’t.

Leadership 101: My Favorite Quotes And What They Teach Me

via Chad Cannon

I see every person on my staff as a leader. They have agency over their little corner of the business. These were some great reminders about what it takes to be a good leader.

How My Mom Will Be Remembered

Today I’ll speak at my mother’s funeral. She was a wonderful woman. To honor her, I’m printing her obituary on the blog today. There was a day, not too long ago, when families in rural communities would sit and read the obits from the town paper and remember people they knew.

I think Storyline is something like a small community.

Here’s something you can use to remember my wonderful mother.

Mary Miller was born on July 8th, 1944 and passed peacefully on September, 14th 2015. She was born in Houston to Lewis and Gladys Dagg and was later joined by her siblings Art and Evelyn Dagg.

Mary was known for her love and enjoyment of people. Church foyers were designed with her in mind complete with a crowd of people, comfortable seating and restrooms for the occasional break. Mary wanted to know how you were, for real. She wanted to know you and collected people the way some children collect baseball cards. She was proud of everybody she knew and she bragged about their accomplishments.

She often admired people so ferociously they started believing they were the person she thought they were.

Mary was a principled woman who would sometimes take her two children, Jennifer and Donald to Austin to visit with state legislators about legislation she supported or opposed. She wanted to participate in making the world better, not only principally but through great personal sacrifice. For years she would visit under-served areas around Houston on Saturday as part of her church’s bus ministry. The next day children would file out of trailers and ramshackle houses to join her on the church bus.

Hundreds of children who might otherwise have never heard about the love of God did so under her joyful care and attention.

They loved her and came to love God because of her.

After her children graduated from school and left the house, Mary went back to school herself completing her Bachelors and then Masters Degrees through night classes. Once she graduated, she retired. She’d no interest in using her degrees professionally, she only wanted to continue learning. The fall of Enron cost her her retirement and she re-entered the workforce later in life without a single complaint.

She loved people and work gave her the chance to be around more beautiful people.

Mary was diagnosed with cancer 16 months before she passed and in that short time went on multiple vacations, often too tired to get out of bed at the hotel. But she wanted to see the world. The sunsets and sunrises. She would order wonderful meals and do little more than smell them as her condition made her sensitive to food. She wanted spend her last year celebrating the beauty of God’s creation and the incredible gift He’d given her in a life.

She praised God to the end, ever believing, never complaining and reminding us all God is good all the time and the circumstances of the human drama, including birth and death are simply bookends to a beautiful story about lost children struggling to believe they will reunite with their Father.

Mary can now be found in the presence of that Father. Probably in the foyer.

Why It Won’t Always Help to Look for Peace Within Your Circumstance

Most people have heard of The Serenity Prayer. It goes like this:

“God, grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Photo Credit: Patrick Maloney, Creative Commons

What most people don’t know is that the prayer was written by Reinhold Niebuhr in 1937 and that there’s a second half to the prayer that is commonly left out.  

It says, “Living one day at a time;  Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen.”  

We’ve been putting too much pressure on ourselves to be okay with change.

When our dog dies, we get laid off, our youngest child leaves for college, or we find out we have to move, we are not serene. We are not strong. We are flustered, confused, sad, and angry all at the same time.  

Simply asking God for peace and strength during life change will not make us instantly cool with whatever comes our way.

We have to turn our prayers into perspective.

Like the second half of the Serenity Prayer, we have to see our small struggle as a part of a big story. This shift has to happen for God to do something different with our lives. There is something we have to learn today to understand tomorrow.

We cannot handle this change, but our God can.




To find contentment with change, don’t look for peace within the circumstance.

See your messy, beautiful life through the eyes of Christ.

Why Changing What You Believe Is Actually A Sign of Strength

Some people have a really easy time with change.

They see the need for it, the areas it will better our lives and the world, feel the excitement with something new and want so much to jump. I like to think that I am one of these people—until I realize that I am quite thoroughly, not.

Photo Credit: Leo Hidalgo, Creative Commons

I’m the person touting how thrilling change will be, seeing what could be better about the current situation, making a grand embark. Then I am instantly looking over my shoulder at what I left behind. “Um…please don’t burn that bridge because I may need it later.”

First, I complain that there aren’t enough fair trade coffee shop options where we are at. Then we are in a city where there are too many and I miss the one I always visited on Monday morning with Rachael.

I wished our church did all sorts of things better—

Then we move and I just can’t go to church because I loved and miss our old one so much.

I wished I lived in a nice house, a house that didn’t have so many things to fix up or a yard that was in constant need of upkeep, so we move to a low-maintenance condo and I miss that old house because I held my first baby there and watched the sun rise through it’s tall windows.

There are the marks on the wall from when she turned one and that is the old cracked sidewalk she learned to ride a bike on. And that is the roof where Michael and sat as fireworks sparkled and broke up the dark July sky, before we had any kids at all.

It’s the whole “you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone” scenario.

I realize how very “first world” all of these things are, and it embarrassing really.

But then there are my beliefs.

I like to think of myself as an open-minded and questioning individual, but often, when my brain begins to ask the hard questions, the internal battle begins. “Self! This is the way of thought you grew up with, this what you have believed for 20 years! You can see the marks where your ass has sat in the cushion from 20 years of believing this way and it’s comfortable, it’s what you know…it’s truth, isn’t it?”

“This is what your pastor taught you, it worked up until now. And what on earth would your mother say?!”

But if I think about it, I realize that some of the things I have believed in for so long feel so true not necessarily because of the merit of the belief, but only because I have believed it for so long.

Familiarity is a trickster.

For awhile, I was frustrated to the point of depression with how I approached God. I was trying so hard to hold onto the pieces that were crumbling—to tape things back together so I could say

“See! It still works!”

Familiarity felt a lot like truth.

It was comfortable. It was the old house with the tall windows and we have some grand memories living in it. We know the hallways and creaky door knobs and our feet just know how many steps are there without looking.

And what a good thing—to cherish and savor, to love where we have been, to have a foundation. But when the foundation starts cracking and you try hard to patch it up and remain on that faulty slab, things get difficult.

That’s how it has felt at times as my beliefs have changed—

like I was standing in a house that I had poured my heart and soul into. Years of marks on the wall, painting and repairing then tearing down this wall, building a new one. The shag yellow carpet was like the language my Sunday school used and once in college I tore it up and put down a different color, discovered a different language, a slightly different approach to faith.

Being willing to change and move forward is what allows us to grow.

Imagine if slavery never had been questioned. Imagine if no one ever doubted that the earth was flat or that women might, in fact, be smart enough to vote (gasp). Change opens the door to bring in love and equality.

Being willing to change is a necessity in the pursuit of God—the pursuit of good, love, truth.

A good friend once told me:

“Missing something means you loved it, so be glad you miss it—let it be a good thing.”

When I feel the pang for our old home, I think about it and am grateful for my experience there, just like I’m grateful for where I have come from in belief. I’m learning to be grateful for change because I know it is necessary. Yes, it is exciting and also difficult, but soon the hallways become familiar, I find the sun is rising in tall windows, and once again my feet know just how many steps to go.

Why Change Can Be Good, Even When You’re Not Ready

It’s 2008 and my wife Annie and I were in a hotel room in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Several hours earlier, we became parents when a beautiful and tiny baby girl was placed in our arms. Upon making it back to our temporary home, we were exhausted, so we fed our daughter and then Annie put her to sleep in the little crib setup beside our bed.

Photo Credit: Richard Leeming, Creative Commons

We got in bed too, and as I drifted off to sleep, I remember thinking how much better I’d feel in the morning after eight or nine hours of sleep.

An hour and a half later Annie shook me awake.

I immediately became aware of a noise, a brain-piercing, blood-curdling, soul-melting noise.

“What is that?!” I mumbled. I genuinely had no idea.

“It’s the baby,” Annie said with a mixture of pity and disbelief.

Oh.

“Oh. What do I do?” I asked.

“Pick her up. Change her diaper. Try to put her back to sleep.”

Oh.

“Oh. Okay.”

I did those things.

Eventually the baby went back to sleep for another hour or three, and somehow we survived our first night as parents. In the morning I found myself thinking about what a ridiculous rookie I was, having kissed a six-month-old goodnight without even considering the possibility that I might hear from her before morning.

It dawned on me that, despite spending almost two years pursuing this adoption, I wasn’t actually ready to become a dad.

This bothered me for a bit—hello again, inadequacy issues!—but eventually I realized I didn’t have to be ready for fatherhood because fatherhood itself would make me ready. Preparation is valuable, there’s no doubt about that, but it can only take us so far.

When we’re confronted by big changes, actual practice takes us the rest of the way.

I’ve found this to be true in different areas of my life:

going off to college, getting married, and taking on new challenges at work. Even in deciding to follow Jesus. In every case, I wasn’t ready. I didn’t fully realize what I was getting into, and as a result, I struggled out of the gate.

But as a I think back on my story, the struggle that comes from significant change has often been the impetus for significant growth.

Struggle has been the crucible in which I’ve learned most of what I know about love, grace, leadership, and efficiently changing dirty diapers.

Sometimes when we say, “I’m not ready,” what we really mean is that we’re not ready to succeed.

And we’re probably right.

But the new roles and opportunities that present themselves to us often won’t for us to be 100 percent ready to succeed. Rather, what we need in order to step across those thresholds is a readiness to struggle, learn, and grow.

We’re not born ready to be successful professionals, spouses, parents, neighbors, and friends. We become those things over time, through practice and process, sometimes failing, sometimes winning, always persisting.

So, are you ready to be a ________? Maybe not.

But are you ready to try, to work, to be stretched and shaped, on your way to becoming a _________.

Yeah, you’re ready for that.

What Makes A Meaningful Life?

Nearly 80 years ago a psychologist named Viktor Frankl stood up to Sigmund Freud. Freud was saying that the primary desire of man was to pursue pleasure, but Frankl disagreed. He said the primary desire of every person was to experience a deep sense of meaning, and when they can’t find meaning, they numb themselves with pleasure.

At Storyline, we agree with Dr. Frankl. In fact, we’ve spent the last 7 years helping people create unique, custom life plans that help them experience the deep sense of meaning Frankl talked about.

If you’ve not created a Storyline Life Plan yet, or want a refresher on yours, join us in Chicago, November 5th and 6th and create yours.

We love it when this family gets together!

Frankl said there are three components of a meaningful life. I’ll share them with you here, but just know we’ll be studying them in depth together in Chicago.

Here they are:

1. A project that demands your attention: Simply have something important that you’re working on that requires you to get out of bed every day. Turns out we weren’t designed to sit and study our belly buttons. We need to find a useful purpose in the world.

2. Unconditional friends: Life is best lived in community and so relationships matter. To experience a deep sense of meaning, we need to surround ourselves with people who love and accept us as we are. We need close, loving relationships.

3. A redemptive perspective on our suffering: Life is full of challenges and sometimes even tragedies. To experience meaning, we must redeem these difficult things by finding a perspective on them that betters our lives. To experience meaning, we can’t let tragedies take us down, we need to redeem them.

If 2015 was another one of those years that felt bland and routine, it’s time to make a new plan.

Until we make a new plan and execute that plan, nothing will change.

In 2 weeks the price of Storyline increases. Grab some friends and register today. We’d love to have you join the family of people who are living a better story.

Come discover the conference that has already changed thousands of lives. Don’t miss out, register today.

Five Articles I Sent My Staff This Week

As a staff, we are committed to learning and growing, both professionally and personally. One of the ways we do that is by reading. Below are some of the most current things we’re reading together.

If you’re in need of something great to read this weekend, start here.

Three People Every Writer Needs in their Creative Collective

via Jeff Goins

Not only is this great advice for writers, it’s great advice for all of us. Check out these three personalities you need in your life.

12 Books on Every Aspect of Launching And Running a Business

via Entrepreneur

My staff and I love to read. We take virtually any chance we can get to get our hands on new books, especially books about business. So I couldn’t help but share this great list with them.

How to Improve Your Blog by Watching A First Time Reader

via Problogger

We’re always looking for ways to improve the experience of our customers and our readers; and what better way to improve your reader’s experience than to actually watch them on your blog?

When Mindfulness Meets the Classroom

via The Atlantic

It’s not surprising that mindfulness helps kids focus in the classroom. But this article makes me thinks we might all find a little more focus and productivity if we took time away from our devices to be mindful of our emotions.

Two Most Powerful Words for Reaching Your Goals

via Michael Hyatt

This is excellent advice for reaching your goals, whether those goals are personal or professional. Great post from my friend Mike.

What Can You Do in the Face of Great Crisis?

I’m on my third of three flights today.

It shouldn’t be any different than the other thousands of miles I have flown, but it is. The TSA agents repeat the calls for everyone to pour out their water before they get to the scanner. Newspapers and magazines show pictures of those days that changed us forever.

The signs posted everywhere remind me that somehow we now live in a world where it’s not safe to carry toothpaste or hair gel in your carryon.

And with all those images and memories in my mind, I wait for my next plane.

Like most people, I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news that our country had been attacked.

I was with a small group of friends in a very rural village near the Haitian border in the Dominican Republic. We were laughing and joking around as we prepared pill bottles filled with prenatal vitamins and anti-worm medicine for the next phase of our medical clinic.

Photo Credit: Breezy Baldwin, Creative Commons

It had been hours since the first plane went into the towers and the news of the attack spread quickly through the village by way of battery powered radio.

Around 3:00pm, a priest from a nearby town printed out a few news stories from the internet accompanied by some pictures to show us what had happened. We were obviously in shock, some people wondering if this was some kind of sick internet hoax.

We were quickly assured that it was not.

For a while we sat in extended periods of silence that were occasionally broken by questions that had no answers.

Why? How? What next? Can we get home?

Then someone asked “What can we do?”

To that question there was an answer.

First, we could pray. Knowing we had no control, we turned to the One who did. We asked for healing, protection, wisdom and comfort. We poured out our hearts, in unity, to ask for the Strong Tower and Lamp to be those very things in that hour of uncertainty and fear.

We cried, we hugged, and then sat back for a second, before we got back to filling pill bottles.

After prayer, the next thing we could do was faithfully continue the work that had been placed before us.

We knew we couldn’t save any of the lives in New York—

but we might be able to save a few in this little village by giving them medicine and teaching them how to purify their drinking water.

We knew we couldn’t comfort those who were mourning in the states, but we could provide the money for a casket to help the family who lived a few homes down from the church who were mourning over the death of their daughter that very day.

We knew all we could do was stay faithful to the place, circumstances and people where God had called us to serve that week.

So today, many years later, I am still trying to do the same thing.

There are so many things that I know I could focus on that I have no control over. As I write this, I do not have a regular job, all of my earthly possessions are in a storage unit or my car, and my bank account is dangerously low.

But instead of focusing on what I don’t know and cannot control, I choose to step forward in the areas I do and continue offering up praise and request to the One who is in control.

Even though, every time I get on a plane, I wonder if somehow this flight could be “the next one” I continue to try to be faithful to the place, circumstances and people where God has called me to serve.

All the images and sounds around me serve as a helpful reminder:

I am not called to be in control, just to be faithful.

I know today’s faithfulness shouldn’t be any different then all the other days, but somehow it is. With toothpaste and hair gel securely stowed in my checked baggage, I will get ready to board my last flight of the day.

Because even in the midst of chaos, confusion and fear, there is still work to do.