“Mind the gap” is a warning phrase issued to rail passengers in the United Kingdom (and elsewhere) to take caution while crossing the gap between the train door and the station platform. There were many factors as to why this phrase was selected but among them was the need to communicate a concise message quickly and effectively.
The technology we have available to us today allows us to communicate very quickly! We carry our phones with us everywhere we go and we text, post comments, email, or call each other whenever we want. I do love that capability!
Yet I fear this same technology is actually helping to make us more ineffective. The technology itself is not to blame. We are choosing to interact face-to-face less often. We’re even choosing to talk to each other less often while using our phones to type our messages instead. Our electronic messages are becoming shorter and shorter. Their meaning becoming less and less clear.
Important pieces of what we are truly trying to convey are falling into the gap. Because of this we are misunderstood, we become frustrated with ourselves and others, and we begin to make up stories in our head to try to fill in the gaps of what we think is missing.
We may even take things a step further by not communicating at all with those closest to us. We take advantage of our closest relationships as if they should be able to read our minds and know what we are thinking or what we want. We get upset when they don’t guess correctly and we begin to make up stories in our head about how little they must care about us.
Does any of this sound familiar?
It’s as if we are beginning to forget how to sit still, look at someone, and talk to one another. Is it time to stop looking at our electronic screens for a second and “mind the gap”?
In The Journey Training, we talk about the importance of being present with other people. It’s not that hard! We simply need to sit down with someone, look at them, and talk. Use simple questions or statements like: How can I help you today? What do you need from me? How can I love and support you? You’ll be amazed at the answers you’ll receive if you’ll only ask the questions.
Life is about relationships and we should constantly strive to create a win-win situation whenever we can. Remembering that we can choose to slow down a bit, sit down and talk, will do just that. Choose to stop allowing things to fall into the gap!
Last Sunday, at Conduit Church, Pastor Darren Tyler shared this quote by Sheldon Vanauken with us:
“The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians–when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths.”
It was one of those quotes and moments that didn’t sink in completely until later in the day. I do consider myself to be a Christian man, a follower of Jesus Christ. I don’t just go to church for the heck of it. I have made the choice to believe what I believe about God and Jesus and to try to live my life according to those beliefs.
And yet this quote and other parts of Darren’s sermon really made me think.
Do my actions match my beliefs?
Not always. When my actions don’t match my beliefs it’s usually because I’m not truly being present in the moment and I misinterpret a situation. I’m on some kind of lazy auto-pilot just cruising through the day and I react inappropriately to even the smallest thing that I perceive to be a slight. In those moments, I can be somber and joyless, self-righteous and smug, narrow and repressive. I’m probably anything other than the Christ-like example I say and believe I want to be.
I will never be perfect, but that can’t be an excuse for making choices that lead to behaviors that don’t align with my beliefs. I hope and pray that the number of times my actions and beliefs don’t match has decreased over the years as I’ve become more mature in my beliefs, my faith. Like anything else in life, it takes practice to get better at something.
The opening quote for this blog focused on Christianity and Christians. But the question I asked can apply to anyone. Do my actions match my beliefs? If they don’t – what do you want to do about it?
Here are a few things to try that can help:
- Be present in the moment. Be intentional with your thoughts and time.
- In the heat of the moment, if you can, STOP your initial thought and count to 5. That can often be enough time to allow yourself to consider your options and make a real choice about what you will do or say next.
- Learn to forgive yourself and others. We often get stuck in a series of actions that don’t match our beliefs because of unforgiveness.
- Strive to be a little better or do a little bit more today than yesterday. Small improvements add up to big results.
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To learn more about The Journey Training, visit us at www.thejourneytraining.com. Hope to see you in the next class!
My wife, Lisa, and I are blessed to have a beautiful home. It’s not beautiful because it’s the biggest or fanciest home we’ve ever owned. It’s beautiful because of the love we’ve poured into it and Lisa’s gifts and talents for making anything in this world more beautiful. It’s what she was created to do!
The other day, we were outside planting some new flowers in the flower beds and we noticed that quite a few weeds had begun to appear in some areas. We had already done a lot of work that day so I made her a promise that I would take care of the weeds and have them out before she got back home from a trip she was about to take.
Being the great procrastinator that I can be, I didn’t jump on this task right away. I left the house and came home many times over the 
next several days. Then one day, all I could focus on was the weeds as I came in the driveway. I couldn’t see all the beautiful flowers anymore, even though they were still right there.
So I finally got to work on the commitment I had made and while I was pulling the weeds I started thinking about things from a different perspective. Why was I so focused on the weeds and not the flowers? Why was I allowing the weeds to redefine the true beauty of the flowers?
Then it occurred to me that we do that with ourselves and other people all the time too if we’re willing to be honest. It really is a matter of focus. We can become so focused on a negative behavior or event that we will actually begin to treat ourselves or other people differently. We will wipe out years of good decisions or years of love and kindness in the blink of an eye. Before we know it, something that was once so beautiful begins to disappear as if it doesn’t exist. Yet it’s still right there.
Where’s your focus right now? Is it the weed or the flower? What is bothering you right now? Are you so focused on something you haven’t done right or that someone else hasn’t done right that you can’t see who you or they truly are anymore?
We should be careful about what we choose to focus our attention on and for how long. If we have done something wrong or someone else has done something wrong, we should face it and hold ourselves or others accountable. We should pull the weed and not ignore it or dwell on it.
And then we should strive to remember this:
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.” Philippians 4:8
Where’s your focus? What will you choose?
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To learn more about The Journey Training, visit us at www.thejourneytraining.com. Hope to see you in the next class!
Have you ever noticed how quickly we can put ourselves down and how brutal we can be with ourselves? We tend to focus on the negative things about ourselves instead of the positive things. Too often, we talk to ourselves and we set ourselves up for failure in our minds before we even try to accomplish something. How do you talk to you?
One of the things I like to do is work out with a group of great people at CrossFit Freeflow in Franklin TN. I like CrossFit because it challenges me to be a little better each day and I’m surrounded by a coaching team and fellow athletes that are always supportive.
Every day is a different workout. One workout recently called for as many rounds and repetitions as possible in 15 minutes. One round consisted of these exercises:
- 15 Dead Lifts at 95lbs
- 10 Toes to Bar (pull your toes up to the pull-up bar)
- 8 Front Rack Lunges at 95lbs
As soon as I saw the details of the workout, I began to doubt my ability to use that weight for the front rack lunges. I mean, I really don’t like lunges in the first place and I certainly had not done them with that much weight before. Have you ever said similar things to yourself? You can probably guess what happened next. I really struggled with the lunges and the weight during the first round. I had set myself up for the struggle before I ever even attempted them. I heard that little voice in my head saying, “I knew you couldn’t do it”, and I began to feel like a failure.
Then, I remembered an exercise from The Journey Training. Every month during the training, I teach other people how to take a negative thought or belief about themselves (the lie) and replace it with something that is positive and true. It was time to practice what I preach!
Starting with the 2nd round of lunges, for each repetition, I lunged forward with the weight, touched one knee to the ground, and then stated out loud a truth about myself as I pushed back up to a standing position. I said things like:
- I AM STRONG!
- I AM CONFIDENT!
- I AM HONORABLE!
- I AM LOYAL!
- I AM A MAN OF INTEGRITY!
- I AM PEACEFUL!
- I AM VALUABLE!
- I AM WORTHY!
I did this for all of the remaining rounds and each time I actually got stronger and stronger. By the time I had finished 5 complete rounds, I had stated 40 different “truths” about myself and my entire attitude had changed! I went from feeling weak and failing to feeling strong and accomplished! I did something that I had never done before! And the feeling of accomplishment continued throughout the day helping me complete several other tasks that I had been procrastinating.
God did not create us to constantly torment, punish, or torture ourselves. He created each of us with very unique gifts and talents for a specific purpose. He created us to hear His voice (the truth) and He gave us the ability to make choices. We deserve to be more self-aware of how we are thinking and to be more intentional about what we focus our minds on and to choose how we talk to ourselves and others.
Philippians 4:8; “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
We have been given the power and ability to control our minds!
From Proverbs 18:21; “The tongue has the power of life and death”.
We have been given the power and ability to choose what we speak!
Let’s choose to listen to the truth, to think about such things, and speak the power of life to ourselves and others!
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To learn more about The Journey Training, click here to register for your Free Mini Journey Training. You’ll discover the few simple tweaks you can make to your life to rekindle your passion and purpose and position you for greater success. Hope to see you in the next class!
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13 NIV (New International Version)
I’m going to guess that almost everyone has heard this verse before, or some variation of it, whether you identify yourself as a Christian or not. It’s a verse that is typically taken very literally and it moves us emotionally to feel and believe that the ultimate display of love is to die for someone else. That’s how I grew up understanding it anyway and that interpretation was certainly reinforced during a 20-year military career.
Am I the only one that sees it that way? Are we supposed to look at it only in that extreme way? Or is it possible that we can also look at it in simpler terms?
My purpose for this blog is not to try and prove that any particular viewpoint about this verse is “right or wrong”. I’m not a theologian and I certainly don’t have the right to tell anyone else what to think. Most importantly, I do not diminish what Jesus Christ did for us on the Cross or what any service member / first responder has ever done in their service to our country and communities.
I’m simply curious about the possibility of a different perspective on this and if a different perspective could help lead us to a greater love for each other.
When we choose to think about this verse and other things in extremes, we tend to think and believe that we can only make a difference by doing something big, or difficult, or ultimately final.
A Different Perspective:
What could life and love be like if we choose to think about this verse and other things in a much smaller and simpler way?
- What if we choose to put our phones down or turn off the TV when our children or spouses want to sit with us and be held?
- What if we choose to change our plans when a family member or friend calls with an urgent need?
- What if we choose to stop what we’re doing and really pray for someone when they ask for prayer, instead of just saying “I’ll pray for you”?
- What if we choose to really listen to someone else so they feel like they’ve been heard and appreciated?
- What if we choose to leave our job or ministry when our family needs us more?
I’ve come to believe that “laying down one’s life” can mean dying for someone else (the extreme) and it can also simply mean giving your full attention to someone else in their time of need. It’s taken me a long time to see this simpler perspective. The examples I listed above are actually from my own life and struggles.
The cool thing about this simpler perspective, every time I have chosen to “lay my life down” for someone else I have received “greater love” than I gave.
What do you think of when you read this verse? What do you believe? If this blog has made you think, or if you want to think about things like this more, join us at The Journey Training.
