Tag Archives: truth

Will the real confident, breezing through life, have it all people please stand up

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I have noticed that more and more people are talking about their desire or attempts to live up to, become, be more like the confident people. The people who have it all together. The people who breeze through life. The ‘have it alls’.

You know the ones? They walk into a crowded room and can immediately engage and dazzle with their scintillating conversation. They are able to juggle every area of their life with ease and they are always happy. They don’t experience fear, doubt, worry or low self esteem.

The rest of us are constantly struggling with ‘ impostor syndrome getting overwhelmed with the sense that we are continually winging it and eventually we will be found out and exposed for the frauds we really are.

The things is… the more I talk to people and admit to the fact I feel I am perpetually winging it through life, the more I realise that most other people would say they are doing that too.

People I thought were confident and extroverted actually turn out to be introverts with a good amount of bravado. The calm, serene people who seem to breeze through life actually admit to being like ducks – paddling for dear life under the surface.

So, I’m starting to think it’s all one big lie. That the ‘have it alls’, the people who breeze through life – they don’t actually exist. It’s a facade. A facade that causes each of us to set ourselves impossibly high standards that we can never reach and therefore we can enjoy beating ourselves up about it for the rest of our lives.

I could be wrong of course. So, I am asking just to check, just to see –

Will the real confident, breezing through life, have it all people, please stand up?

Stand up and show yourself if you love introducing yourself to new people and making small talk – never doubting for a minute or being held back by limiting beliefs about yourself.

Stand up if life is a breeze, you never experience anxiety or worry, you don’t have stress.

Stand up if you have never once felt like to a certain extent you are just winging it and you will one day get found out.

Stand up if you have it all and you never feel guilty, or that that you compromised on something or that you sacrificed one area of your life to improve another.

Stand up if you are there.

Are you a 'what it could be' friend?

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http://thecity.org/message/better_together

As is my current routine, I have begun the morning listening to the above message. I like to start my day listening to truth and focussing my mind on God. It would be so easy just to turn the television on and get lost in the plethora of daytime shows but I have intentionally avoided this.

This message talks about the fact Jesus was fully grace and fully truth. 100 per cent truth and 100 per cent grace. It speaks of our struggle with this – that we tend to favour one over the other.

One quote that stuck with me today and got me thinking:

Everybody needs a ‘what it could be’ kind of friend in their life.

What does that mean exactly? We are often good at listening and supporting, we are probably better at offering advice and explaining exactly where they have gone wrong. We may even get to a point of frustration when they keep doing things that are detrimental to them and their life.

We look at the ‘truth’ that we know about them and we want to use it to judge them and call them out on it and say ‘stop!’

Many of us will not want to admit to this but if you really think about it , if you are really honest with yourself – you do this. We struggle to be gracious to people when we know a lot of the truth about them and their life. it makes it difficult for us.

Yet…

He sees and knows the truth about you fully, yet he fully extends grace. What you have done, what you are doing and what you are going to do.

We have access to one hundred per cent grace in spite of the the truth about us. How often do we offer the same to those around us?

  • How often have we focussed on the journey that someone has made instead of the mistake?
  • How often have we given someone hope – ‘It doesn’t have to be what it is’ instead of ‘It is what it is’
  • How often have we in spite of knowing the truth – offered grace

My guess is not too often, my guess is like me you have read those questions and they have made you think, maybe they have convicted you.

So what now?

As you have read this post has a name come to mind? Has a recent encounter come to mind?

To my friends and those who read this:

I want to say, I am sorry for the times I have said “It is what is.’ when I should have said ‘It doesn’t have to be what it is.’

I am sorry for the times that I have let the truths I have known about you cloud my ability to show you grace.

I want you to know that just like me you are not who you should be but you are not who you used to be.

I want to be a ‘what it could be.’ friend

I want to socially and relationally function full of grace and truth.

And… when I get it wrong, I hope there will be grace there for me.