Donald Miller's Blog, page 83

What Jesus Taught Me About Walking Away From People

Recently I’ve been giving a lecture about how we will become like the people we hang out with. It’s true. In five years, you’ll become a conglomerate of the people you spend the most time with. In fact, if I wanted to know who you were going to be five years from now, I’d not ask what you do, what education you have, what you eat or whether you exercise, though all those things have an impact. Instead, I’d want to spend a little time with the folks you spend time with. That alone would tell me who you were going to become.

We are intensely relational beings. We become like each other. It’s just a fact.

*Photo by Jhayne, creative commons

For this reason, I recommend analyzing all our relationships. Literally put them all on a map and ask ourselves whether we want to become like these people or not. If we don’t, I strongly believe that, if possible, we should consider letting some relationships go.

It’s scandalous, I know. But I recommend it all the same.

Occasionally, if I’m speaking to a group of Christians I’ll have somebody ask whether Jesus would ever walk away from somebody. My answer is that He not only would, He did.

In the story of the rich young ruler, Jesus asked him to follow Him, to join Him, to develop a relationship on His terms. The rich young ruler declined, as we know, and Jesus stood and grieved because He loved the young man. And then Jesus walked away. Jesus didn’t go live with the man, giving up His important mission to settle down and play video games and swim in the guy’s pool. Jesus walked away.

Sometimes we take the idea that Jesus goes after the lost sheep to mean we should become like the unhealthy people around us. But this of course is foolish. We should have a direction in life, we should become people who are more and more sanctified, and we should be inviting others to join us. And if they won’t come, we grieve. But we move on all the same. Some relationships simply aren’t good for us. You aren’t rejecting them, they’re choosing not to come with you.

This simple paradigm shift helped me a great deal.

What Jesus Taught Me About Walking Away From People is a post from: Storyline Blog

Why I Quit Being Nice

When I graduated high school, a friend said something to me I’ll never forget. She said, “Ally, you’re so nice. You might be the nicest person I know. I’ve never heard you say a bad word to or about anyone, and I’ve never heard anyone say a bad word to or about you. Never change.”

(Because “never change” is always the thing you say on your last day of high school).

Honesty, it felt like the highest compliment I could ever receive. I took it as a personal challenge to be “nice” forever.

I did my best to “never change.”

Then, ten years later, I got an e-mail from a girl I didn’t remember from high school. A classmate of ours had recently passed away, and she and I crossed paths at the funeral. Seeing me again reminded her of a story.

She asked if I remembered a day, sophomore year, when I was walking up the stairs with two of my friends, and a girl in front of us tripped. She asked if I remembered what my two friends said to that girl, that they laughed and made fun of her under their breath, and that the girl ran off, crying.

Worst of all, she asked if I remembered what I did next. I stood back, she told me, eyes wide, and mouth shut. I didn’t tease. Didn’t laugh. Wasn’t mean. But I didn’t say anything to her, or to my friends.

She asked me if I knew she was that girl.

I read the words over and over, to see if the memory would come back, but it wouldn’t. I felt a little panicked, actually, trying to summon at least a fuzzy movie in my mind, so I could offer some explanation for why I had done such a thing. I was nice after all. I was the nice girl. Why would the nice girl do something like that?

In that moment, a painful realization came crashing over me: niceness isn’t everything.

• • •

For so many years I worked hard to be nice, trying to live up to that story my friend had told about me. In one sense, it felt good and right and admirable to be the kind of person who never said a bad word about anyone else, and who never gave anyone reason to say a bad word about me.

But now, as I thought through the past ten years of my life, I realized being “nice” wasn’t doing for me what I wanted it to do.

Being “nice” was preventing me from saying what I thought about things.

It prevented me from telling my friends that I thought laughing at someone for tripping on the stairs was rude (for fear of being too harsh or judgmental) and prevented me from telling the girl who tripped that I knew how she felt. I’d been laughed at, too.

I wouldn’t want that girl to feel like I was singling her out, or overstepping my bounds.

I wouldn’t want my friends to feel like I was rejecting them.

It prevented me, years later, from expressing political opinions or theological opinions or even opinions about where I wanted to eat dinner — which in turn prevented me from having authentic, meaningful relationships with people. In some cases, friends would beg me to say what I thought, but instead of being honest, I would mimic those around me, and then (of course) feel invisible.

When you can’t tell the truth about yourself, you cease to exist as a person.

Being “nice” kept me from doing what I was made to do.

Trying to manage my “nice girl” image kept me trapped, working to control other’s opinions of me, rather than doing what I knew was right. I couldn’t send an e-mail or even a tweet without hours of deliberation. I stayed on the margins of my life, scared to get into the thick of things, terrified that I was going to hurt someone, or offend someone, or mess everything up.

I avoided jobs I wanted, parties I wished I could attend, and friendships I longed for, with the excuse that they could be the wrong job, wrong party, wrong relationship, or that I would make a mess of them.

If I didn’t do anything, I couldn’t do anything wrong. Right?

I’m starting to see how doing nothing is sometimes the worst thing you can do.

*photo by R/DV/RS, creative commons

These days, I’m using the word “kind” instead of the word “nice.”

Because I think the quality my friend noticed in me on that last day of high school is an important one. I care about people, and want them to feel loved, noticed and important. But “niceness” as I defined it all those years was actually getting the way of what I was trying to accomplish. Sometimes niceness isn’t very kind at all.

For some, the words might be interchangeable. But for me, it helps to make a distinction.

Niceness stays quiet. Kindness speaks up.

Niceness is toxic. Kindness is healing.

Niceness lies to keep the peace. Kindness knows the only way to make peace is to tell the truth.

Niceness holds back. Kindness moves forward with humility, gentleness and grace.

• • •

Thank goodness we change after high school. And thank goodness I’m learning, slowly, to quit being so nice.

Why I Quit Being Nice is a post from: Storyline Blog

How Loneliness Made Me Stronger

I lived in England once. For a year after college, I studied English literature in one of the oldest university towns in the world. Many unexpected things happened that year, but the loneliness was perhaps the most surprising.

I had studied abroad in the same city during college just a couple of years before and my previous experience had been full of friends. I lived in a house with twenty people I went to college with in the States, and we were all venturing together.

England “take 2” was completely different. I arrived with three enormous suitcases and few acquaintances. The town was full of familiar streets, but strange faces. I forgot knowing how to get around did not mean I would know actual people— the thing that really matters in the end.

I had felt lonely before. I had felt like I had no friends before. My entire 8th grade year, for example. But this type of loneliness was different. There was an added layer to it: I was a foreigner.

We, as Americans, know that our culture is influential, so when we travel abroad, we expect to be understood by the natives. This does not happen. I didn’t feel like British people got me, and I certainly didn’t get them. We spoke the same language, but the social nuances, cultural references, and even their priorities when it came to things like beauty and education left me far outside their walls trying hard to listen in. I couldn’t understand, and I was consistently failing.

*photo by Andrea Willa, creative commons

That is what made my time in England so rich and so full—feeling lonely. At first, I sat in the loneliness. I spent a lot of time by myself and felt sad. “Nobody gets me here…I can’t understand my professor’s Irish accent…I don’t know how to find anything in these supermarkets…”

It was a lot of that for a while until the day I had a brave moment, my turning point: I invited people over for dinner. They were acquaintances from class, one from England and two from South Africa, and they came to my house one night and taught me how to cook curry and we talked for a long time. I felt like myself again. I felt like I might survive this country and that there was indeed a way to understand each other, maybe not on a national level, but at least on a human level.

• • •

There are few things I champion more than spending an extended amount of time abroad. It forces loneliness upon you unlike most life scenarios. But I know we don’t have to travel far to feel like aliens. This world is a long and spread out Tower of Babel. It can feel like no one speaks your language, and your own home, school or workplace may be what’s fostering loneliness for you right now.

Loneliness is the worst. The absolute worst, but it can be effective at changing us for the better, forcing us to do brave things and appreciate relationships. You won’t notice the change at first, loneliness is stealthy. It delicately changes your perspective while you’re in and it is not until you are fully out of it that you look in the mirror and notice a difference.

How Loneliness Made Me Stronger is a post from: Storyline Blog

Two Lists I Make Every Morning

Every working day I fill out a Storyline Productivity Schedule and one of the things it disciplines me to do is to make two lists. The first is a list called “If I Could Live Today Over Again I’d” and the other is a list of “Things I Get to Enjoy Today”

The things I write on those lists don’t come naturally. I’m forced to sit and think about them, sometimes for several minutes. But they serve me. In fact, they serve me so well I no longer skip them. Here’s why each list is so important:

IF I COULD LIVE TODAY OVER AGAIN I’D

I borrowed this concept from renowned psychologist Viktor Frankl who taught his patients to treat each day as though they were living it for a second time, only this time around to not make the same mistakes. It’s an amazing little mind trick, actually. What it does is cause us to evaluate the decisions we will make that day even before we make them and as such avoid regret. It’s a powerful tool to help us not live in reaction but instead to accept our God-given agency. When I sit and think about what I’d do if I could live today over again, I always write down that I’d spend more time in prayer or invest in close friends. My life becomes much more relational because I make this list.

THINGS I GET TO ENJOY TODAY

I’ve a confession. I love to work. I love my job and I love my life. What we teach at Storyline works better than any other life-planning system I know and I often feel like proof. That said, a life building Storyline isn’t a complete life, and at times I get bogged down with the work and feel as though life is passing me by. I borrowed this list from Dr. Neil Fiore, a leading expert on helping people to stop procrastinating. Dr. Fiore believes one of the reasons people procrastinate is because they feel like if they work they’ll be missing out on an enjoyable life. Of course, it all backfires because they don’t get their work done and then don’t enjoy life either because they feel guilty. So, Dr. Fiore developed this helpful list as a tool. In the morning, simply write down all the things you get to enjoy today and you won’t feel like you’re missing out on life. In fact, you’ll be much more likely to get your work done knowing you aren’t missing out on life at all but are simply getting your work done first so you can enjoy it without guilt later.

You can start making both lists every morning, if you like. If you keep at it, it becomes a habit and life becomes more productive and enjoyable. It all starts in the mind.

Download the Storyline Productivity Schedule HERE.

Two Lists I Make Every Morning is a post from: Storyline Blog

Sunday Morning Sermon: Bill Murray Teaches Us to Slow Down

Imagine getting to meet your favorite actor, then asking for his autograph, only instead of him giving you his autographed, he agreed to slowly walk down a hallway with you and your friends so you could film it as though you were in one of his movies.

Bill Murray did just that, and it’s one of the reasons the world loves the guy so much.

Filmed “Wes Anderson” style and set to music, it’s far better than an autograph.

It just goes to show you how great life can be if you’re willing to slow down for people. Of course, none of us are Bill Murray, but slowing down for your spouse, your kids or your friends for just a minute to really give them something that will blow their minds is a magical concoction that makes life great. Way to go, Bill. We’ve a lot to learn from you.

Sunday Morning Sermon: Bill Murray Teaches Us to Slow Down is a post from: Storyline Blog

The Best Viral Videos We Found This Week

We missed last Saturday because of the Storyline Conference in Nashville. For those of you who have asked, this weekly series isn’t going away!

Your favorite video from the last Saturday post was Five/Five. What about this week? Vote below in the comments.

The Best Viral Videos We Found This Week is a post from: Storyline Blog

What I Learned About My Busyness from a Man in a Maroon Honda

Recently I was heading in for a 7:00 a.m. breakfast meeting and for whatever reason I actually left the house early. The breakfast place I was headed to is exactly 15 minutes from my house so I knew I had to leave at 6:45 to make it on time, however, I remember sitting down in my truck, looking up at the clock and seeing that it was only 6:39 a.m.

Just a few minutes from my destination I noticed a middle aged man in a maroon Honda Accord who was trying to pull out of the gas station into my lane of heavy morning traffic. I had plenty of time left to get to my appointment, so without hesitation I put my brakes on and let him out.

As he pulled out and waved the thought crossed my mind…

Margin is essential for the unexpected!

Storyline Blog

The Reason Some Theologians are Arrogant and How to Avoid the Pride Trap

Years ago, when I worked at a small publishing company outside Portland, I’d get together every couple days with a former seminary professor named Ross Tunnell. Ross had left seminary work and was doing graphic design, but was widely considered to be one of the smarter Old Testament teachers in Portland. I made a deal with Ross, saying that if I bought lunch, he’d teach me the Old Testament. And Ross took me up on that offer. We probably met more than fifty times over two years. It was a terrific arrangement.

Ross passed away only a few months ago and I’ve been thinking about those lunches, of all that I learned. But last night I remembered the greatest lesson Ross ever taught me. I was thinking about this lesson because while surfing around on the internet, I saw a minister somewhere speaking very arrogantly about how he had some bit of theology figured out and somebody else didn’t. I think maybe it was a moment of weakness for said minister, but nevertheless it helped me remember something Ross once said.

• • •

We were driving back from a conference in Salem and I was going off about some bit of scripture, explaining it to Ross as though he’d never come to the same revelation. I must have talked for about ten minutes, perhaps condescendingly (a way of speaking that prevents true dialogue, and also prevents anybody from disagreeing with you, at least in public) and Ross just sat there and listened. I don’t even recall what scripture I was talking about, but when I was done, and when I looked over at Ross to give an affirmation to my unparalleled intellect, he sat quiet. Finally, I asked what he thought. And Ross just stared straight ahead and said “I think knowledge puffs up.”

I was embarrassed, to say the least. There have been a thousand times since, though, that I wish Ross was standing next to me when I’ve made equally as embarrassing tirades.

Of our fifty or more meetings, that’s the lesson I remember best: Knowledge puffs up.

• • •

And I think this is the thing that ruins many a seminary student. Knowledge. It’s not that knowledge is bad, it isn’t, it’s good, very good according to Solomon. It’s just that knowledge is incredibly powerful and dangerous. It has to be handled with care, like a radioactive material. It can easily explode and kill many, pushing people away from the church (unless of course they agree with you.)

A good test for me is to come back to the fruits of the spirit. Is my knowledge producing these characteristics: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self Control?

If we acquire knowledge before we are emotionally healthy, that is if we are insecure, we are going to use it to boost our own ego and compare ourselves to others. The desire for knowledge will be like a need for a drug, then, pacifying a wounded spirit through comparative associations. Entire theological camps have been built and bolstered by this needy, angry, gluttonous desire for knowledge. But if we have confidence, if we are secure, knowledge humbles us. We realize that we did not invent truth, we simply stumbled upon it like food on a long journey. Knowledge will then produce the fruits of the spirit.

Seeking knowledge, then, is like tending a vineyard. It’s just farming. But you aren’t the one who produced the fruit, God is. You’re just a farmer, just a guy who makes and distributes wine. It’s blue-collar work.

Ross was one of the most humble men I’ve ever met. And he was also one of the most intelligent. Those two combinations are sadly rare. These days I’m wishing I knew what he knew, in more ways than one. Goodbye old friend. And thanks for the lesson.

(a repost from the archives)

The Reason Some Theologians are Arrogant and How to Avoid the Pride Trap is a post from: Storyline Blog

Why Drive-By Charity is Ruining Your View of God

I usually listen to NPR in the mornings when I’m driving to work, but this summer it was difficult to keep listening because of all of the awful things going on in the world. My empathetic heart broke at the reports of Syrian school children who were gassed to death, a 1-year-old baby who was fatally shot in New Orleans, a little boy in Beijing whose eyes were gouged out, and several high-profile suicides. Some mornings the news reports were so terrible, all I could do was swear and cry. A lot.

I decided that walking around all day swearing like a sailor, with mascara running down my face, was not helpful (or attractive), so I stopped listening to the radio for a while, and instead used my silent morning commute to pray for the world and all of its brokenness.

In the silences, I also started thinking about God’s plan to redeem all of this brokenness. And then my imagination got the best of me, and I started wondering what would’ve happened if God had taken his cues from us when trying to save the world.

If God were a politician, he might have sent Jesus knocking door-to-door, asking people to vote for his Father’s platform of love and peace and mercy. And, if it wasn’t too much trouble, maybe a small donation – because everyone knows how deep the devil’s pockets are.

If God kept the world afloat like NPR stays on the air, he may have had a fundraising drive. There’d be different levels of giving and a cheesy donor gift depending on how big your donation was. A fridge magnet for $50, a mug for $100, and maybe a tote bag for anyone who gave even more.

If God solved the world’s problems like musicians do, he might’ve organized a concert where performers who used to compete with each other for top Billboard spots now stood together on stage, their arms around each others’ shoulders, swaying to an emotive song. Millions of people around the world would be moved by this beautiful demonstration of solidarity, and would text a keyword to a shortcode to contribute to God’s Save the World fund.

But when God wanted to save the world, he didn’t use a ballot measure or a give-a-thon or a shortcode or a ridiculously large styrofoam check. Instead, he sent his son, who was named Emmanuel—God with us. God didn’t give a check; He gave a person. Love incarnate moved into the neighborhood and lived next door for 33 years. And before He left the earth, He promised that eventually we will all get to move into his neighborhood and live next door to Him without ever having to move away.

• • •

This week I’ve been wondering what would happen if we took our cues from God when it comes to loving the world instead of the other way around. Raising money to love the world in tangible ways – like providing clean drinking water and medical equipment and shoes – is important. But God doesn’t want us to just give money and then retreat back to our safe, comfortable and isolated neighborhoods.

God wants us to be generous not only with our resources, but also with our lives; not to practice drive-by charity, but to dwell in the brokenness and senselessness and pain of the world until he comes back to finally and fully redeem it.

Loving the world this way isn’t cheap — it comes at a high personal cost — but it’s simple. It doesn’t require celebrity status, a transatlantic flight or foreign language classes. It just requires us to be present where we are.

If each of us took the time to know and unconditionally love the people living next door to us…

If we didn’t run away from the brokenness but lived in it…

If we didn’t try to protect ourselves from the messiness but embraced it…

And if everyone we came in contact with did the same…

… well, that kind of thing could change the world.

Why Drive-By Charity is Ruining Your View of God is a post from: Storyline Blog

Are Cell Phones Ruining Our Relationships?

Does this bother you as much as it bothers me: A person is pushing a stroller, with the child facing the adult, and the adult is doing something on his or her phone, oblivious to the child? If the child is a baby, he or she is invariably locked onto the face of the caregiver, looking for those cues like facial expressions, sweet sounds, songs, maybe even a little monologue about what they’re seeing and hearing together. That’s how babies learn stuff. We all know that.

I saw it again this morning.

*Photo by futurestreet, Creative Commons

I was walking back to my house after a run, and I saw the tell-tale signs from a couple of blocks away. A young lady was pushing a stroller slowly. The baby was facing her. The lady was going slowly because she had her phone out and was writing with her thumbs, pushing the stroller with the heels of her hands. My already overheated body began to boil. Welcome to Zombieville, I thought. Our phones, our status, our updates, our “Daily Me” posts have taken over. The next generation doesn’t have a chance. We will all be taken up into the sky, not because of the rapture, but because of our own weightlessness. I so badly wanted to say something. I so badly wanted to blame her for the demise of civil society. I so badly wanted to hurl her phone into traffic, take the stroller, and say, “I’ll watch your kid for you until you get done telling the world how awesome it is that you’re taking her for a walk in the neighborhood.”

But I didn’t. I was very sweaty, and probably a little scary looking, and lately I’ve been trying to avoid saying things that I’d regret later. So I crossed the street before we got to each other. As we got even, though, I looked over to see one more time what was wrong with the world, and, sure enough, she had stopped. In an intersection! Typing away. Words started to form in my head. Before they got to my mouth, though, I saw what was on her screen.

It was a GPS. She was lost. She looked up at the street sign, her face brightened, and she turned purposefully, putting her phone away and picking up the pace. She seemed happy. She talked to the kid. She had figured out where she was, and she was headed home.

Have you heard the commencement speech given several years ago by novelist David Foster Wallace to Kenyon College? There’s a great Youtube video that uses excerpts from it, called This is Water. It is a brilliant speech that counsels us all to stop presuming we know what everyone’s motives are, to stop putting ourselves and our own outrage in the middle of everything so that we can maybe understand someone else’s story. I thought of that speech as I expressed gratitude for not being a jerk to that lost lady in my neighborhood.

• • •

This happened one time before, too. A couple of years ago I was speaking at a retreat for college-age students in Kansas. I was speaking on not being conformed to the world but being transformed, through the renewing of our minds. It was organized in a very cool way so that after each service when I was done speaking, the audience would go into an adjoining room where there were icons, candles, low lights, and recordings of Greek monks chanting. The purpose was to go into that room, adopt a physical posture of worship on the floor, and let the message sink in. A setting for quiet reflection and renewal.

After the last service, I entered the room with the others and sat down. In front of me was a very large young man, wearing his college football letter jacket. The room was so quiet and so beautiful. Then the guy pulled out his phone.

“Seriously?” I thought to myself. “Did you hear nothing I said about spiritual depth? Is this really the time to be checking scores and texting?” He ignored the toxic vibe I sent his way and kept scrolling. It annoys me when college students do this during class, but dude – we’re at a retreat on the theme of not being conformed to the world.

Finally I moved a little closer to him. I wasn’t going to confront him, it was in a silent place of worship, he could take me easily and I was the guy who had just spoken about being transformed. But I just had to see what was so fascinating that couldn’t wait until he got back to his room.

Here’s what I saw on the screen: “Paul’s Letter to the Romans.” He was reading the text from which I had been speaking.

I heard that the PBS star Mr. Rogers carried a note in his pocket that was given to him by a social worker. The note said “There isn’t anyone you can’t love once you’ve heard their story.”

Even people on their phones.

Are Cell Phones Ruining Our Relationships? is a post from: Storyline Blog