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Andy Stanley - Born To Run · Andy Stanley Sermons

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: So my journey when it comes to learning to be
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: content actually started where most of yours started. That you
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: can remember, Mine started in high school. I went to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: a high school that started in the eighth grade. It
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: was eight through twelfth, ninth through twelve, so we were
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: all about this tall, okay, And so the eight through
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: twelfth grade long time ago, and I quickly and everybody's
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: looking for their group and their deal. And I realized
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: real quickly that even though I was a good kickball
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: player in our cul de sac, I was not an
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: athlete in a high school.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: So the athletes weren't going to be my deal.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: And because they weren't my deal, and they intimidated me me,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I did not like athletes. And then I realized I'm
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: not smart. My parents told me I was smart. But
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: then in high school I realized my parents lied. I
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: am not smart. I did not make good grades, and
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I studied hard, and everybody would be finished studying, and
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: I'm like, wait a minute, we're not done. Are when
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: they're done? And so I'm making c's.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: So I wasn't smart.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: So I didn't like smart kids because I couldn't relate
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: to them. I did not I could not play a
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: wind instrument. Okay, if you cannot play a wind instrument
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: in high school, you cannot be in the band, that's right.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: And my parents didn't want me to play the drums,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: so I didn't like the band p people. They didn't
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: like me, so we weren't rich, so I didn't like
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: the rich people. So basically a high school I didn't
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: really like anybody because I wasn't like anybody. And you
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: want to be liked by people you like, and even
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: if you're not like them, you'd like to be liked
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: by them, so you try to be like them.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: But if you're not like them, you're not like them.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: And so this is my first this is my first
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: memories of feeling like an outsider. And the thing was,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I came up with an excuse, like like all of
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: us do, right, we manufacture reasons not to like people
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: so that we feel better about ourselves, because it's easier
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: to come up with five reasons why I don't like
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: them than to admit the fact that, well, I'm just
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: not smart, I'm not athletic, I'm not rich, I can't
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: play a wind instrument, I don't really fit in anywhere.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: And then in the eleventh grade, I had my big break,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: and I've actually am feeling better about just kind of
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: getting this off my chest. I think I've been carrying
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: this a long time. In the eleventh grade, I had
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: my big break because our whole class, the eleventh junior class,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: was supposed to do some kind of.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Field day thing. I don't even remember.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: You kind of blame the things out because they're terrible,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: and and it rained and so they put all the
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: eleventh graders in the cafeteria with no teachers because you know,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: they're out there drinking coffee. And all the eleventh graders
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: are in there for this, you know, half the day
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: or not half the day, but you know a couple
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: of periods because this thing got rained out. And so
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting there and we're all looking around, and so it's.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: A typical cafeteria.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: There's a stage, and there was a grand piano on
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: the stage. And I had learned to play the guitar.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I taught myself to play the guitar, and then I
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: taught myself to play the guitar on the piano. Does
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: anybody know what it means to learn to play the
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: guitar on the piano?
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Let me explain it to you.
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  Speaker 1: You you don't know how to read music, and you
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: can't play the melodies, but you just you're nodding, you
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about. So you play an octave
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: in the left hand.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: That's like boom boom boom.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I was like the bass, and then you just played
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: chords with your right hand. And I learned to I
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: could play any song that i'd heard. I had a
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: great year. I didn't know how to read music, so
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I all got up on the stage and I just
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: started playing the piano, and of course it's loud, and
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: people came up around the piano, people I didn't know,
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  Speaker 1: because I didn't know anybody. EX didn't like anybody. Nobody
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: liked me, and so it was mostly girls. So this
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: was like a win, right, and so they would ask
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  Speaker 1: for a song and I could just I could pretty
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: much play anything, not well but well enough everybody sing it.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: And suddenly I found my place in this world, right,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: because there was something I was good at and I
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: was liked, and I liked being liked, and so I
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: graduated from high school. I decided, this is what I'm
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: gonna do the rest of my life. Because I liked it,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: and people liked it that I liked it, and I
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: was good and I was getting better, and so I
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: decided to major in music. Went to Georgia State University,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: and I decided to be a music major. And so
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I took that, did that first semester and the second
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: semester where you do all the stuff you have to do,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: and then I was going to get into the core.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: And so I went to the music department and I thought,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: I'm going to find somebody. Maybe I'll try out to
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: be the pianist in the jazz band. Now I understand
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  Speaker 1: I could not read music, but that wasn't going to
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: get my way, because I could just listen to it
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: and learn it and fake it. You know.
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  Speaker 2: That was going to be my plan.
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  Speaker 1: And if you know anything about music, you know how
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: far that would have gotten me majoring in music at
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: a university. So I'll never forget this. I was on
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the end the I don't know what the school's like now,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: is a few years ago. So I'm in the basement
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  Speaker 1: and they all have these practice rooms with all these
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: little studios with p and I'm walking down the hall
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: trying to find somebody.
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  Speaker 2: To talk to.
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  Speaker 1: And I hear this jazz piano music that's like otherworldly.
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  Speaker 1: Like I'm listening, I'm just it's echoing down the halls.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, what in the world. And I was hoping
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: it was a recording and there wasn't actually somebody at
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Georgia State University that could play that well, unless it
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: perhaps it was a teacher. And I go around the
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: current corner and there's some student standing out in the
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: hall looking in this little practice room and I get
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: behind him and I look in and there's the room
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: is full, and there's a grand piano in there, and
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: there's a guy in there.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: I found out later his.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Name is Jerome, and he was like it was like butter,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: it was like magic. It was like I think I
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: will change my major.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: And I did because I could never be that good enough.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: I'm never going to be that good I'm never gonna
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  Speaker 2: make it and it's just not going to go well
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  Speaker 2: for me.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: So more all of the story is and you know this,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: and I'm just gonna put some words around some stuff
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: that you already know. There is always so with more er, right,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: you know this, right, there is always someone who is richer,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: who is skinnier, who is smarter er, who is hip er,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: who is more talented er, or their girlfriend is pretty er,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: or their boyfriend is cute er, or their job is
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: better er. I mean, everywhere you look, whatever you want
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: to do, and whatever you want to be good at,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: whatever you think you're good at, and whatever you think
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: you've accomplished, there's always somebody with more er. So what
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: we do, or what I did, I shouldn't put this
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: on you. Maybe it's just me. What I did is
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: I looked around for people with less er so because
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: when I was with people had less er than my
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: er than, I felt superior er. And we all want
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: to feel like we kind of got it going on,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: and we want to feel a little bit superior. So
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: this becomes a dynamic that we live with and I
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: don't think it ever goes away. And then there's some
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: of us and this isn't me so much, or maybe
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: it is, but I don't know if I want to
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: go this far in public confession. There's some of us
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: that don't even want to be an er. We want
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: to be an st. We want to be the rich st.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: I want to be the smart s. You want to
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: be the healthy s. You want to be the cute s.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: You want to be, the skinny s. You want to be,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the pretty s. You want to be the retweeted s. Okay,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: you want an s. Right. So the moral of the
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: story is the moral of the story is there's just
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: no win. There's never, ever, ever any win in comparison.
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  Speaker 1: You may have heard this before, you may have heard
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: me say this before. There's just no win in comparison.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, comparison is what puts the disks in disk
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  Speaker 1: Contentment and discontentment fueled by comparison is we're going to
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: see in a few minutes. And as all of us
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: already have a story, this isn't new information. Discontentment fueled
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  Speaker 1: by comparison is actually very dangerous.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
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  Speaker 1: Some of you have consumer debt because you stared at
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: somebody else's lifestyle for too.
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  Speaker 2: Long, didn't you.
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  Speaker 1: Some of you have consumer debt because you stared at
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: what somebody else drives for too long. Some of you
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: have consumer debt because you visited their house. You should
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: have never visited their house because when you went back
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: to your house, you kind of walked around like this, like, man,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: these eight foot ceilings, I feel like they're coming down
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: on me. I mean, I need ten or twelve foot ceilings,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: and you went out and got yourself another mortgage, and
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: now you got all this debt and the reason and
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: you hate it. I mean, we all hate debt. That's
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: just the worst thing to have to live with. It
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: just seems into all of our relationships. Money is kind
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: of weird in that way. Money becomes emotional when you
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: owe money. You've you've learned that. We've all learned that
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  Speaker 1: as adults. But unfortunately, unfortunately you've lived long enough to
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: experience what happens when you stare at what somebody, what
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  Speaker 1: other people have that you don't have. It becomes very dangerous,
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  Speaker 1: becomes dangerous relationally, it becomes dangerous.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, some of you.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Are dieting yourself to death, some of you are working
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: yourself to death, some of you are studying yourself to death.
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  Speaker 2: And what's driving you?
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: You tell yourself, well, I'm just trying to maximize my potential.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: That's a good thing to maximize your potential. But unfortunately
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: we're trying to maximize somebody else's potential that doesn't even
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: know we're competing with them, and oftentimes we're killing ourselves financially, relationally, emotionally,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: it goes on and on and on, and it's because
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: we live in a world obviously, where we know what
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: everybody else has, and we know what everybody else drives.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: And then it gets really weird relationally, like I experienced
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: in high school and have really and with a couple
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: of groups of people or types of people.
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  Speaker 2: I've really struggled with my whole life.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: And I'm old enough and mature enough to know now
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: it's my issue, not theirs, but this whole comparison thing.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: This will put you at odds with people that you
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: know you'll never be like that, you know you'll never
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: be as much as whatever it is you want to
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: be as that they are, as that you just aren't
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: going to be able to measure up to. So we
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: do what I did in high school. We don't outgrow this.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: We kind of shrink back and we create reasons why
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: they're not okay. The problem is they're okay, it's just
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: that we're not okay. And you find yourself not being
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: able to get along with certain kinds of people who
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: remind you of who you'll never be and what you'll
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: never look like, and who you'll never may and what
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: you'll never do in your future. They got your job,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: they're living your dream, and you're just miserable. And then
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: again because of the world we live in, and this
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: isn't going to change. So please don't hear me about
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: to give you the solution to this. I just want
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: you to feel horrible about yourself and then we'll sing
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: a song. Is I mean, this is church, right, I
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: mean that's what you do. You just feel bad about yourself.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: That's the goal. Then you go home and go I
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: don't I didn't learn anything, but at least we all
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: have the same problem. So anyway, I do want to
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: I want to give you a way forward. But the
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: world we live in i' mean coming. I mean, I'm
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: like you.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: I live.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: I live on a laptop or you know, I live
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: on my thumbs, and every browser reminds me of what
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I don't have. Every website, even though I'm not even looking,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I mean right, everybody's tracking us. The other day, Sandra
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: and I were talking about Uber and we were saying,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: you know, she says, I wonder I'm not making this up.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: She says, I wonder if there's such thing as an
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Uber gift card. I promise you I promise you on
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: both of our phones, on my iPad in her phone.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Adds to to showing up for you can buy a
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: gift card for Uber. I'm like I've said, I mean,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: you hear those stories and we laugh, like it's not
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: They're not that efficient.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: I'm telling you unbelievable.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Right, So, so everywhere you look, you're reminded of what
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: you don't look like, You're reminded of where you don't
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: work out. You're reminded that there is not enough ship
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: lap in the world to make you happy.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Right, I mean, we all know this.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: And now the worst thing, you know, I wasn't an
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Instagram person and all my and again here's this is
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: how this works. All my preacher friends, you know, because
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm a pastor and the pastor of a
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: large church. So I have friends who are pastors of
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: large churches. And you know I had more. I had
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: more Twitter followers than them. I mean, it doesn't really matter,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I don't really look, but they had way more Instagram
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: followers than mean. One day, Sanders says.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: So and so and is there's one hundred and fifty
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: thousand Instagram following.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: What I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm doing okay, And
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: then now I'm like thinking about this all the time,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: and God in Heaven's going.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: What I called you to do? And what do you
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: I mean?
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: And now even on Instagram, I'm trying to, you know,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: be saying, but it's like now they're advertising stuff on
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just everywhere. So the thing is, this
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: isn't going away. And the point of the message isn't
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: that culture's bad and we need to abandon society and
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: all come together and you know, live in a commune
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: that I mean, that's not it. It's not going away. This
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: is not a problem that can be solved, right. And
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: then there's this and now I'll try to get something practical.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Then there's the whisper. I don't know what else to
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: call it. You might, you might have a better name
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: for this than me. I just call it the whisper.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: There's this voice. It sounds a lot like my voice.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: I don't know what your voice sounds like. There's this
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: whisper that basically just says you need what they have
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: to be respectable, acceptable and lovable. I mean, that's kind
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: of the moral of the culture's story, right, that you need.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: It's a whisper sounds like my voice, but it's a
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: whispers in my head. You need what they have to
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: be respectable, acceptable and lovable.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: And I've been I've lived long enough to know this.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: I will tell you.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: So let me tell you something about they. Okay, let
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: me tell you something about they. They whoever they are
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: for you, whether it's just images, it's people on browsers,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: or it's people.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: That you know and they have you know and you
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: need to have it.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: They they actually have the same voice in their head
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: whispering the same thing. Because no matter what you have
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: or what you've accomplished, there's no when in comparison, it
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: never leads anywhere. In fact, the wisest man who ever lives, Solomon,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: who had it all, done it all, been there, done that,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the wisest man who ever lived, he just summarized it
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: this way. He said this, he said, he wrote this.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Envy rots the bones.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's extreme. Envy rots the bones.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: So the bottom line for our time together is simply this,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: knock it off. Okay, just stop doing that. If only
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: were that easy. And I wish I could come out
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: here tonight and say, let me tell you how this
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: will never affect you again. I can't tell you how
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: to make it go away, but I do want to
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: tell you how to manage this tension because it's not
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: going away, but it won't go away. But it does
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: not have to control you, and it does not have.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: To drive you.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: And as I was preparing for our time tonight, honestly,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I found myself in sort of devotional mode, going, God,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: I am so glad I'm talking about this because I
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: need a reminder because even though I'm not in high
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: school anymore, there are just other versions of the same thing,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: and it has the potential to ruin our lives. It
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: has the potential to drive us crazy financially, it has
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: the potential to make us less generous because as long
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: as I'm trying to keep up with people I can't
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: keep up with, I don't have any margin to give
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: to other people, and I don't have margin to support
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: the things that I want to support because I'm trying
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: to keep up with people that don't even.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Know I'm trying to keep up with them.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: So this isn't a problem that has ever solved, But
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: this is a tension that we all have to learn
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: to manage, especially if you're a Christian actually, if you're
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: a Jesus follower, because this intersects with your relation to
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: this intersect with your relationship with your heavenly Father, who
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: has called you this is an amazing thought. We're not
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: going to develop it, but it's just an amazing thought.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Who called you get this according to.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: His purpose? Wow?
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: What what if you missed God's purpose for your life
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: because you were trying to keep up with a culture
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: that's not even a thing, it's a myth. We're going
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: to see a word in just a minute that Solomon
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: is gonna give us that helps us kind of put
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: some sort of personify this, this ghost, this vapor this thing,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: this illusion that we all chase, this thing that has
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: the potential to steal the joy of life.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Not a problem to be solved.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: So what I want to do in our few minutes
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: that's left is my goal is to give you a
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: mental line of.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Defense something that sounds kind of technical and weird.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: A mental line of defense, in other words, a place
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: that you can go mentally when you start drifting toward
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: envy or discontentment emotionally. Because for most of this, even
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: though it starts right here with our eyes or our ears,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: but generally our eyes. It gets emotional, It gets emotional
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: real quickly. Suddenly we're feeling behind, We're feeling unloved, we're
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: feeling ugly, we're feeling.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Like, you know, we're not keeping up.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: We're just we're feeling like we're not everything we ought
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: to be and everything everybody expects us to be. So
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: what I want to do tonight is I just want
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: to give you a couple of phrases that I hope
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: that you will kind of drive deep down into your
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: soul and as you experience the tug, as you hear
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the whisper, and you're gonna hear the rest of your life,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: just like I am, that we would have a place
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: to go mentally, to tell ourselves something that is so
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: true and so instructional that it may keep you between
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: the guardrails, and if you're a Christian, it may help
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: direct you toward God's purpose for your life.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: So back to the wisest guy that ever lived.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: He's jumping right into a little bit of a narrative
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: and he's kind of telling us what he's He's an
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: old man now and he's been there, done that. He's
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: so wealthy. Solomon was so wealthy, he'd accomplished so much.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: So he has all this life experience, and he's downloading
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: his life experience for people like us who have less
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: life experience and will never experience life like he's experienced it.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Because part of the allure of culture is if only
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: I had, if only I drove, if only I looked,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: if only I'm married.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: And Solomon says to us.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Hey, been there, drove it, lived in it, married it
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: looked like it, bought it, sold it, been there, whatever,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: whatever your deal is, I've done that. And so let
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: me tell you what I've learned through my years of
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: having been there and done that, as it relates to
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: the whisper if only, if only, if only so.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Here's what he says.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: He says, and I saw he's talking about something he
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: saw in the past. And I saw that all toil,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: all work in all achievement, all you goal setters, you know,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: all toil and all achievement spring from one person's envy
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: of another. It's like what he goes, Yep, I've seen it.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: I know what's happening out there. This isn't new. This
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: is three thousand years old at least, and older in
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: other words. He says, I looked around and I realized
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: everybody is simply competing. Everybody is determining. This is this
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: is this is shocking, This is embarrassing because this is
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: so true. Everybody is determining where they are based on
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: where everybody else is. Everybody is determining. To speak of
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: it in a way that he would that everybody. I
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: look around and I noticed that everybody is determining where
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: they are based on where other people are. And then
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: he says this, this too is meaningless. And then he
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: gives us our phrase. Then he gives us this mental image.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: He gives us a phrase that I want you to memorize.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: I just want this to become part of your mental language.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: You know, the mental languages and stuff you don't necessarily
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: say out loud. You just think it. And by the way,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: there are things that you should just think. They should
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: never come out of your mouth. Okay, just a little lesson.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Honesty is not saying everything that's true. That's foolish. You
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: will have no friends. Honesty is not saying everything that's true.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Honesty is just making sure that what you say is true.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: So are there some true things you should never say?
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: But anyway.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: So I want to give you a mint sense, something
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: that you say to yourself, or you may need.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: To say out loud. But here's here's the phrase. This
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: is so powerful.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna read the whole verse, and that I'm
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: gonna add this last part. And I saw that all
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: toil and all achievements spring from one person's envy of another.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: This too, is meaningless. And here's the phrase, A chasing
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: after the wind that powerful, A chasing after the wind.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: It's endless, it's pointless. There is no finish line. There
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: is no trophy because there is no winner, and there
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: is no peace.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: There's just not er.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Dissatisfaction guaranteed, dissatisfaction guaranteed, because comparison is what puts the
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: dis and discontentment, and discontentment dissatisfaction guaranteed.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: It steals the joy. And here's the tragedy.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: It steals the joy from our accomplishments. It steals the
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: joy from what we have done. It steals the joy
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: from the goals that we have set and have accomplished
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: because somebody else has accomplished more, because somebody else has more.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: So when you catch yourself and you know what, here's
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: the thing. You're gonna catch yourself before you even leave
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: this auditorium. You're gonna catch yourself, you know, before this
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: hour is out. But when you catch yourself looking, oh, man,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: you know, I wish I had hair like that. Uh,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: you know, I wish I had skin like that. I
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: wish I, oh that, she looks so good, and I
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: wouldn't look good at that. He looks so good in that,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: I'm not even gonna try. When you catch your your
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: self looking, when you catch yourself drifting, when you catch
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: yourself looking and drifting in somebody else's direction, when you
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: catch yourself drifting over into someone else's lane, that's when
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: you say to yourself. And for some of us, I
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: think we should say it out loud, not loud enough
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: for everybody else to hear, but just loud enough to
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: stop us. That's when we say, ah, that's chasing the wind.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: That's chasing the wind. No no, no, no, no, Ah, not
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: gonna buy that.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: That's just chasing the wind. Keep going, Ah, that's just
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: chasing the wind, chasing the wind. And I don't chase
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the wind. So I want us to say this out loud. Together,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Both of these phrases you're ready, Here we go. That's
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: chasing the wind one more time. That's chasing the wind.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: And I don't chase the win. Do you mean? Come on?
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: This isn't a Christian religious thing. This is just the
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: thing thing. Do you want to spend the rest of
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: your life chasing the wind?
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: No? Why? Because there's no wind.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: In chasing the wind, there's no win in comparison.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: There's no trophy, there's no finish line, there's no there's
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: no I did it. You did what? I don't know.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: I just did it. I know there's no win.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, there's always faster, cute or smaller, younger, a hipper,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: I mean bigger. It's chasing the wind. And come on,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know you personally, but I know this. Your
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: life is too valuable, and your life is too short,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: and your time is too valuable for you to waste
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: any of it.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: Chasing the wind.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: So the moment, those emotions, those feelings of inadequacy and
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: I'm not rich enough, and I didn't measure up to
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: what my parents thought of all that. Who's that's chasing
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: the wind?
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: And I don't chase the wind. Now.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Fortunately Solomon's not through because he knows there's another side
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: of this, and he knows what some of us are thinking,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: because the whole idea of not chasing the wind is
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: not an invitation to be passive. In fact, I remember
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Solomon wrote this. Solomon accomplished more than you will accomplish
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: in your whole life. And I'm not trying to put
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: you down. I'm just saying, like he was the king
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: of a nation. Okay, he had endless resources, he built
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: a temple. You can still, you know, go see the
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: base of the temple. I mean, he's an amazing person.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: So he wasn't passive. He wasn't like I just live
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: and let live.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: It didn't matter.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: You live today and gone tomorrow. And he said some
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: things like that in Ecclesiastes. But in terms of his
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: life personally, he accomplished a great deal. So here's what
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: he says. He says, I don't take this to it
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: an unhealthy extreme. Fools, Fools fold their hands and ruin themselves.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Fools say, well, you know what, since I can't keep up,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Since everybody's better than me, since everybody has more talent
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: than me, since everybody had a better family, Since ever,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: since everybody else, I'm just I'm just not.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Even gonna try.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Pelmus says, no, no, only a fool does that being
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: unproductive is not the answer. So he brings in this
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: next verse, this is so powerful. It's like, if you
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: don't ever read the Bible, you should read the Bible.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: In fact, start with what Solomon wrote.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: If you, in fact, if you're not a Christian, you're
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: not into the Jesus thing.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Hey, Jesus wasn't born for a long time. Start with Solomon.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: He was just a king. And these are just wise sayings.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: It's just that they're found in the Bible, which which
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: is great. And here's what he says.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Next.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: He says, so he brings these two extremes together. He's like, look,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: don't spend your life chasing the wind, and don't fold
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: your hands and go, oh well, why try. Don't spend
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: your life chasing the wind and trying to keep up
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: with people that don't even know you're trying to keep
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: up with them images on the screen. And at the
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: same time, don't just throw up your.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Hands and give up.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: And he brings them together in this next statement that's
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: so powerful. Some of you perhaps just need to memorize
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: the statement. He says this better. I love this better.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: One handful with tranquility, then two handfuls with toil and
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: chasing after the wind.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: And that great. You're like, I don't even know what
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: it means.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: I know, I'm gonna explain it a minute, but it
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: is great, So just take Okay, but look at the
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: imagery of this. He says, it's better to have one
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: handful with tranquility, which rubs us the wrong way in
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: our culture because our culture isn't about one. Our culture
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: is about two. Our culture is about more. If I
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: had four hands, I'd have four handfuls, you know. I
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: mean it's all about more, more and more. He says, Okay,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I have more than all of you said. Just shut
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: up and listen for a second. I'm telling you one
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: handful with tranquility, one hand will with tranquility is better
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Tranquility means satisfaction.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Tranquility means you drive home at night and you go
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: into your apartment, or you go into your house and.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: You're fine.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Tranquility means you visit your your friend, or your your
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: older brother, or even your younger brother, or your older
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: sister or younger sister, and they live in this big
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: old house, you know, and they got a gate.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: You gotta gage, you, hey, can I can? I commit?
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: It's your brother and they have to beat you know,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: let you in their gage, you know, you know, and
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: then you drive home to wherever you live, and you
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: know what tranquility is. Tranquility is. I'm so happy for them,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't bother me. I'm so happy for them,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: it doesn't bother me. I'm so happy for her, it
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: doesn't bother me.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: You got into your your your grad school.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: That's so great, and you got into the school I
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: wanted to go to. I'm I'm you know what. Upon
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: a time that would have bothered me so much. I'm
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: not even sure we could be friends. But I've learned
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: that one handful with tranquility, of tranquility is better than
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: two handfuls of striving and chasing. Here's the thing. We
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: assume more is better. That's what we're taught every single day.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: We assume more is better, But chasing more always leaves
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: us wanting more.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: So here's his point. This is why it's so powerful.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Less is actually more when the less you hold is
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: what you were created for. That less is actually more
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: when the less you hold is what you were designed,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: what you were created for, what you were born to
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: do better one handful of tranquility than grasping and striving
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: and pretending and competing. Then he goes on, he said,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: let me tell you something else I saw while we're
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: talking about it. This is so great Again, he said,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: I saw something meaningless under the sun.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Well, tell us what it is. This is fascinating Solomon.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: There was a man all alone. He had neither son
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: nor brother, to which we're like, so what. But see,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: in this culture, if you didn't have a son and
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: you didn't have a brother, then you had no one
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: to leave your estate to and your wealth to. Or
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: even if you didn't have much, you didn't have anybody
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: to leave anything to, because in ancient times women could
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: not inherit anything. So here's a guy who's been working
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: hard and has something to show for it, but he
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: doesn't have anyone to leave it to. And then Solomon
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: says this there was no end to his toil. In
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: other words, he was just getting after it. Yet his
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: eyes were not content with his wealth. So he was
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: working hard and he was getting more but you know,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: more leads to more, and bigger leads to bigger, and
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: better leads to better. And he's just getting after getting
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: after getting after it. And then he finally, this guy
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: stops and asks a question that some of you've never asked.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: And I'm telling you, I wish i'd asked this question
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: much earlier in my life. I fact, if I could
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: sit down with you and you're, you know, some of
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: your fifth twenty thirty years younger, forty years younger than me,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know how old Joe, I would say. You
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: know what, if you'll begin to ask yourself this question
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: early on, it will help you, It will make it
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: will you will learn to be content with one handful
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: of tranquility, and it won't. You won't be content like
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: you want to accomplish anything. You will accomplish all you
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: were born to accomplish, but you'll do it with peace
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: and tranquility. Because here's a question this guy forgot to
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: ask that most of us forget to ask. And here's
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: the question. It's so powerful that's Alma says, he forgot
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: to ask. For whom am I toiling? He finally asked
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: the question. I mean, he's been going on and on
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: and on year after year, and it's like he's going,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, what who am I doing this for?
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Who am I doing this with? And who am I
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: doing this for? What am what am I trying to prove?
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: And who am I trying to prove it to? Now,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: this is a hard question, and I had to wrestle
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: this one to the ground many years ago. That's why
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: I just would love you know, if we were sitting
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: down over coffee, I would say, this is this is a.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Really big deal.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: And the younger you are, the more powerful, and the
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: more time you have to live this out. But it's
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: never too late, because there's an answer to this question,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: whether you've asked the question or not, and whether you
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: know the answer or not, there's an answer to the question.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Why are you doing this? Why are you striving? Why
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: are you toiling? Why are you pushing? Why are you
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: gritting your teeth?
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: What? Who is it for? And for some of you
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: do you know who it's for?
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: You're competing with your brother, you're competing with a sister,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: some of you are trying to live up to your
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: mother's expectations. And let me just tell you something I
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: don't know your mother, but you'll you'll never win with
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: your mother. You won't. You know how I know it
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: because if you could have won, you would have won.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: If it's going been going on a year after you
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: after year, and she's this, and you're just trying and
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: try and trying. Okay, why some of you are trying
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: to please your father. Some of you are trying to
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: make your father smile and finally give you that hug.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: And some of you your father passed away and you're
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: still striving, and you've never stopped and asked this powerful question.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute, what why am I doing this? Who
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: am I doing this for? Who's approval am I competing for?
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: And do they even know? And do they even care?
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: And would it even matter if they did? So, here's
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: a question they were moving on for whom to use
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: his word, for whom are you toiling? And let me
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: just give your heads up. If you say I'm doing
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: it for me, M probably not. Well I'm just doing
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: it for me, oh maybe. But before you just go
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: there and move on, this is a question you need
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: to wrestle to the ground for whom are you toiling?
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: Really? Because for some of you, when you are able
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: to answer that question.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: It will free you up to be content with one
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: handful of tranquility instead of two hands.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Of if only, if only? In when he goes on,
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: and why this is so amazing?
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: This is the same fictitious this this, this guy that
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Solomon knew that sort of represents, you know, people, humanity.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: And why am I depriving myself of enjoyment? This guy?
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Solomon says. The thing about this guy, he accomplished so much,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: he has no one to leave it to, and he's
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: not even enjoying his stuff. He's so bound up with
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: more stuff and chasing the wind. It's like, wait a minute,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: who am I doing this for? And why is it
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: I'm not even enjoying the fruit of my labor. It's
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: because he'd never answered the question, and why am I
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: doing this to begin with? And perhaps you aren't enjoying
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: your life either, And let me tell you what.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: If you're not enjoying your life, no one else will.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, if you're raising kids, if you're not enjoying your life,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: they're not enjoying your life.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: For some of the some of you, I'm getting a little personal.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: The reason that you're your relationships are just kind of repeat,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: re repeat same thing.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: In it's the same way.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: If you're not enjoying your life, the people that you
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: date aren't going to enjoy you.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: They're just not.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: If you're not enjoying your life, the people that are
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: closest to your friends, they won't enjoy you either. They
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: will sense your angst. In fact, they may have tried
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: to tell you, and you're like, there's.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Nothing wrong with me. I'm just ambitious. I'm just a
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: goal setter. Well, no, you're something else.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: But I can't say that because Andy said, don't say
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: everything that's true. Just make sure what you say is true.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: So I'm not going to really tell you what anyway.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: So and then there's this okay, just to really if
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: there's not if you don't feel guilty enough, are motivated enough.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I hope you're motivated think about this.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Isn't it true?
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: I don't think you could argue with this. Somewhere in
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: the world tonight there are a billion people, or let's
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: just be conservative, somewhere in the world tonight are half
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: a billion people that would look at your life and
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: your circumstances and your.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Body and where you live and what you drive.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: And who you know and they would consider you one
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: of the luckiest people on earth, but you don't. And
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: do you know why you don't, because you don't know
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: why you're toiling and striving, and you don't know who
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: you're doing it for. One handful with peace and tranquility
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: is so much better than two handfuls of grit, intention
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: and a lack of peace. This too, he says. I mean,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: he's so honest, This too, is meaningless. It's a miserable
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: business you will never find. You just have to trust
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: me on this, or just figure it out for yourself
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: or think it through.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: You're smart, you know this.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: You will never be who you were born to be
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: as long as you are looking over your shoulder at
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: anybody else, because the energy you expanded and the energy
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: I expand looking left and right and over my shoulder,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: that is energy God gave us to do what God
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: has called us and created us to do. And if
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: you're a Christian, as I said earlier, you'll never discover
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: God's purpose for your life. You are so aware of
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: God's purpose, perhaps for other people's life, but you will
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: never discover God's purpose for your life as long as
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: you're distracted by someone else's success. Now, I grew up
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: some of you know, I grew up with a very
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: successful father, and in some circles, I grew up with
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: a very famous father. And I had to figure this
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: out from myself. And I wish I had asked some
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: of these questions much earlier in my life. And I
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: wish I had learned one handful of tranquility is so
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: much better than two hands of striving and chasing after
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: the women. And I'll tell you somebody else who had
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: to learn it in a similar way, as well as
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: somebody that all of you've heard of, and some of
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: you know something.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: About him, some of you virtually nothing about him.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: His name is Joel Ostein, right, Joel Oastin's also a pastor.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: And I love Joel's story because I maybe it's because
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: I'm a preacher's kid and he was a preacher's kid
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: and he said something.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: I read his story. Then. I've only met him.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: One time, and we had one conversation and he was
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: with the group and he told his story and I
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: wrote something down. I'm going to show you what he
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: wrote down in just a minute. But his story, the
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: thirty second version of his story is he dropped out
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: of college and went back home to work for his
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: dad editing video. His dad was a pastor on TV
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: and he would edit his dad's video. So that's what
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: he did. He did not an extrovert. Introvert, just wanted
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: to edit video for his daddy, as he calls me,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: his daddy. And then his daddy got sick, was put
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: in the hospital. They didn't have anybody to preach one Sunday,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: and so his family said, Joel, you need to preach,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: and he's like, I don't preach, I edit video. He'd
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: never preached in his life. They said, no, you need
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: to preach, and so Joel. So his dad called him
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: from the hospital. He said, and he said, Joel, I
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: just need you to preach for me Sunday.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Everybody will love you. You're my son.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Theyn't understand. He's like, Daddy, I don't have any sermons.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: His dad said, okay, Joel, huge pick one of my
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: sermons that you really like a lot, and just repreach that.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: He said.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Two days later, I called my dad in the hospital
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: and sai, Dad, I can't find any of your sermons
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: that I really like a lot.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: But he finally picked one and he preached one and.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: It was terrible. It's terrible. The next week, his father
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: passed away and his family came to him and said, Joel,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: we think God has his hand on you. You're a
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: pastor and preach at this journey. He's like, I've preached
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: one sermon.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: And it was terrible.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: And Joel talked about how he tried to preach like
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: his dad. He said, he said, you're not going to
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: believe this. He said, I actually wore my father's shoes
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: for the first few months that I preach, trying to
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: figure this out. And then he said something I wrote down.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: And regardless of what you know about Joel Ostein, and
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: regardless of what you think about Joel Ostein, I don't
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: want you to miss this because this is so powerful.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: In fact, this next statement is why you've heard of
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Joel Ostein. He worked for his dad in pret and
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: See for seventeen years.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: This is what he said.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: He said, Then it dawned on me. I have to
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: run my race. I can't run my daddy's race or
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: any other preacher's race. And he's been running his race
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: ever since. And here's why I tell you that story. Look,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: come here, you have to learn to run your race
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: and quit chasing the wind.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Back to Solomon, here's what he says.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: A heart this is the entire statement that I gave
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: you the second part of at the beginning. Solomon says this,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: A heart at peace gives life to the body, but
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: envy rots the bones. You cannot I don't care how
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: rich you are, poor you are, how good looking you are,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: where you live, what you're you're connected to. You cannot
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: compare your way to peace. You cannot compare your way
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: to peace. You cannot compare your way to tranquility. You
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: can't win chasing the win God has given you. God
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: has given you a race to run, and you need
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: to get in your lane, and you need to focus,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: and you need to stay there. Look to other people
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: for inspiration and celebrate their success. You look to them
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: for inspiration, but you don't look to them for imitation.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: When you see somebody knocking it out of the park,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: maybe somebody living your dream, somebody driving your car, somebody
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: going to your school getting your degree, you celebrate them.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: You say, I'm so happy for you. But I am
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: running my race and I am staying in my lane.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna waste an ounce of my energy resenting you.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna waste an ounce of my life being
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: jealous of you, because I'm running my race in the
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: lane that God has put me in. Jordan Peterson in
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: twelve Rolls Life of Fabulous book, he says it this way.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: I love this quote. He says, compare yourself. Compare yourself
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: is today.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: That is great advice, isn't it.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: If you've got to compare Compare yourself to who you
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: were yesterday, Because if who you were yesterday is not
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: as who you not as great as who you are today,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: then you're making progress. Compare yourself to yourself, but don't
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: waste your life and caund waste your energy comparing yourself
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: to other people. Count your blessings, not your neighbors. You
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: know what, when you begin counting your blessings and you
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: drop it into the context of how some people live
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: in this world, You'll wake up every single day grateful.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: You'll go to bed every.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Single night grateful every single night, every single morning, you
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: will be grateful when you start counting your blessings rather
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: than everybody else's. Here's the thing, please, because you only
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: get one shot. Don't miss the life. Don't miss what life.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Don't miss the life God has for you, and don't
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: miss us what life has for you.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: You will never experience.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: You will never experience your life fully.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: You will never.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Experience your life fully until you embrace what is right
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: in front of you. I've done it the right way.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: I've done it the wrong way. I wish I'd learned
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: this earlier. You can begin today. So when your emotions
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: start drifting, when your emotions start drifting, when your emotions
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: start drifting, when your emotions start drifting and start getting
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: the best of you, you stop and you just declare
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: to yourself. I say, you declare it out loud. I
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: will not chase the wind. I will run my race
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: and my lane. I will not chase the wind. That's
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: good for you, congratulations, that's great. I will not chase
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: the wind. I will run my race and my lane.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: And if you do, you will become the person God
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: created you to be. But if you aren't willing to
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: take my advice, and if you aren't willing to take
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Solomon's advice, and if you're not willing to take Jordan
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Peterson's advice, then, I think you should at least take
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: it from Bruce. Find your lane and run in it, because,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: after all, tramps like us, baby, we were born to
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: run