You will find that by the end of this blog, your perspective on your life will change. Whether that change is good or bad depends on the choices you have made up to this point. Our culture is full of noise and lies, as we push through our day we all have goals we are trying to achieve. The problem is that many people feel very unhappy with where they are in life. Henry David Thoreau said "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation". Are you in this group? The good news is that there is hope. That hope can be found in a simple truth I teach using red lights.
Two days ago I taught this to one of my business mentee's, and her response was profound. Her name is Amanda and two days ago she finally achieved the promotion she had been chasing for years! Our mentor relationship started almost a year earlier. Amanda is a sharp woman who is not unfamiliar with challenges. No taller than five foot five, the only things that match the speed of her mind is the speed of her feet and tongue. Teleporting from one side of our building to the other, relentless in her expectations and untiring in her efforts, promotion had eluded her many times throughout the years in devastating fashion.
Many of our mentorship meetings boiled down into her venting her frustration until she discovered her own answers before teleporting away. Today was different. She had finally reached her goal, yet I perceived that she may finally be ready for a simple truth that allowed me to promote and skip four levels in the same company only two years earlier. I did not anticipate just how ready she was. "Amanda", I asked her "How do you feel?". I had invited her to go for a walk with me after yet another celebration of her big achievement. "I am in shock" She shrieked, "I actually cried!!". Her tough outer skin did not let tears through often. After my grin subsided a bit we began to discuss the next steps. "John" she suddenly asked at one point in the conversation, "Do you remember when I told you that I did not believe in God?"
Interested, I replied, "Yes". Storm clouds leveled mountains as the horses raced from her brain fighting for first place out her mouth. "I was wrong." She blurted out. If my eyebrow raised any higher it would have become my new hairline, "Really?", came my reply. "Yes John, these last months have been the lowest of my life. My life literally shattered. You remember my son believes in God?" I nodded, my increasing grin refusing to be pushed aside. "Well as a single mom with this much pressure, I decided to pray. The result has been supernatural!" She went on to tell me how her promotion was just one in a line of miracles since she started trusting in God. She was in the middle of the largest worldview shift of her life, which meant she was discovering the simple truth that I now plainly brought up.
"Amanda, what would happen if tomorrow I suddenly stopped believing in red lights?" The horses trampled every standing structure between her ears. " People will die" came her response. "Why Amanda? What if I believe it with everything in me and I am completely convinced?" You could almost hear the horses if you were close to her at this point. After several moments she correctly spelled out why my belief would be dangerous. "Exactly! Our beliefs do not change reality."
Will you take a moment and deeply consider this simple truth?
If I challenge you to spend your day considering this, would you?
Amanda would be the first to tell you that her life has not always reflected proud choices. The time would fail all of us to speak about bad decisions made by ourselves and others. Yet what do we mean when we say "bad" choice? To paraphrase Dr. Ravi Zacharias, when we use the moral term "bad", doesn't that immediately assume it's opposite "good" by which to differentiate the two? In our assumption of these two moral realities doesn't that immediately assume a moral law and law giver? Yet so many do not believe in a moral law giver. Our beliefs do not change reality
Your life is a reflection of your beliefs. Your thinking governs your life and as you look over your shoulder you smile and also are saddened by past thoughts. The question is not about what you think about, the question is how far away from reality are your thoughts?
I have asked this question in various formats from businesses to city hall and the response is always the same. Humorous. People immediately realize the folly of failing to believe in red lights. The sad thing about it all is they fail to see how they hold even sillier ideas in their lives. Your mind immediately imagines the horrific car accidents, injury and death that would ensue from such a dangerous belief. Can your mind identify the injury and death in your own life from similar thinking you currently believe?
"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation". Do you know what we call beliefs distant from reality? Lies. Do you know how we validate reality? Evidence.
Amanda has begun to discover the evidence surrounding God and it is having a real impact on her life. She is beginning to tire of the desperation and to heed the signs that evidence produces. She is starting to consider red lights. If I was to re-quote Thoreau I would say, "The mass of men follow lies into quiet desperation". If you have not consider the historical, scientific, medical and logical evidence of God in your life, then to you I propose a question.
Can it be that the reason you are so unhappy, is because you are running red lights you do not believe exist?
