Tag: Humility

BUT..3- Becoming a man, a woman, who doesn’t need a but

presmedalfreedom“Man is never truly himself except when he is actively creating something.”  ~Dorothy Sayers

     The image for this article is the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded to American citizens (and others) who have made a substantial contribution to the shaping and preservation of our American heritage and to the world. Recipients in recent history have been- Walt Disney, Bruce Springsteen, Ellen DeGeneres, Desmond Tutu, Maya Angelou, and Bill Gates.

     None of these men or women said “no” when they were told it couldn’t be done. They just did it. We need to emulate their perspicuity and perseverance. Too many of us give up midstream; or worse, we dream but never start.

     What are the characteristics of people who just do it? Who make no excuses? For one, they stick to it! Take Elon Musk:  he has found so many ways to fail that he has probably lost count; but he keeps at it. On a personal note, I used to say that I had failed so many ways that I had raised failure to an art form. Elon Musk stuck to it; so did I. And so do a lot of you. Keep it up!

     Another characteristic is listening to criticism, especially creative criticism. You know what to do with the negative critics. No you don’t. Actually, listen to them; listen to lots of people. One mouth, two ears…, remember? You want all the creative input and creativity you can get.

     Then there’s regrouping and starting over when you realize you’ve been heading down the wrong line of development. Don’t be ashamed; be smart.

     Psychologists tell us that the key to successful, long term relationships is humility. This is also true of anyone who seeks solutions rather than making excuses. One of our Board members recently designed reorganization for her business that eliminated her division. That’s creative, gutsy, and reeks of humility. She made no buts about it. She just did it.

     She could do it because her character gave her a base for such courage. If we are to become people that have no buts, we must pay dedicated attention to nurturing not only our skills, but our moral character and spiritual selves as well. Never doubt that your life has a spiritual dimension that calls for your attention. It is the basis for everything else you do. From the song in the movie, Saving Sarah Cain, TURN UP THE MUSIC, “make peace with God and make peace with yourself.” That’s good advice and as good a place to start as any.

     There is so much more to becoming a man, a woman, who doesn’t make excuses, but I will end these contributions with just one more— build bridges, don’t burn them. Too many of us burn our bridges behind us, or in front of us. Christians are especially good at building walls between one another; and the world outside. Christ never intended it to be this way.

NEXT— Butt-Out!

Honor God, honor people…, make a difference,
Gary

Escaping Love Games

gary davis,escape, love games,clueless,christian     So…, How are your Love Games going? Had time to implement any ideas from the last Learning to Love article— LOVE GAMES…, and how to play them?  At one point or another we’ve all had to play them. We need, or just want, to protect our hearts. But there comes a time when we simply get tired of playing the game. We want out.

Are you tired of the one-upmanship, the secrets, remembering what we said or did not say, etc.? Do you want straight forward love/trust/transparent relationships? Could you be asking too much? Maybe? Maybe not? We want things cleaned up, straightened out, untangled. Basically, safety. The difficulty is— How do we do it?

If you read the previous entry in this series— LOVE GAMES…, and how to play them, you could start by flipping the 7 points to morph into their opposites.

  1. Get REAL with yourself.
  2. LOOSEN UP. You don’t have to control everything.
  3. LEARN to TRUST others. Seek their best.
  4. TRUST GOD. It’s scary; but what life-changing endeavors in life aren’t?
  5. STOP JUDGING PEOPLE. They are different than you. Measure them by another standard.
  6. SPEAK TRUTH! All of it.
  7. CONSIDER YOUR COURSE. Are you on-target to become the person you know you should be?

The first steps of escaping Love Games are internal. They are frank conversations with yourself about who you actually are. Let go of the projection of yourself you want others to see. Speak the truth to yourself about yourself. You need to resolve to own a new level of revelation and transparency. Up for it?

The next steps of escaping Love Games are more external, more socially interactive. It might be prudent to begin with a smile on your face and an apology in your pocket for being the manipulative jackass you’ve been for so long. “If you put yourself on the bottom, there’s only one direction you can go:  if you put yourself on top… .” ‘Nough said.

Words like confession, submission, humility, and forgiveness should become part of your vocabulary and your lifestyle. These ideas are NOT signs of weakness: they are symbols of strength. Hopefully, you can adjust to them without a radical change in your personality.

God has designed each of us with individual characteristics—strengths and weaknesses. As you know, our strengths often backfire on us and become our greatest weaknesses. Our weaknesses, on the other hand, can often be nurtured to overcome their own inefficiencies and blend within our strengths. You will find that a great deal of shifting around takes place when you are trying to escape your Love Games.

WARNING. TAKE HEART. The majority of the population on our planet play Love Games, including Christians; but we don’t have to. It is only the rare; it is only the strongest and resolute among us who can break free of THE GAME. Doing that outside the readily available power of Christ is extremely difficult.

Jus’ sayin’.

NEXT DISCUSSION:  BEYOND LOVE GAMES: accessing the Power of Christ.

 Carry on, and drink single malt Scotch,

Gary

How to receive

Dr, Gary, Davis, Clueless, Christian, Gift, ReceivingFollowing my article on How to Give, my thoughts wandered to the other side of the equation. Namely, that some of us have difficulty in receiving gifts. In our day, even a simple gift gives rise to suspicion in the mind of the receiver that “there must be strings attached.” What does he/she want in return? I do not deserve this, so, what’s going on? Thus, another list. J

How to Receive— A Seven Point Primer

  1. Accept the gift, responding with gratitude, without any sense of obligation to return one. To do so makes the gift a pawn on a chessboard; it becomes a game, barter, if you will, a contractual relationship, and lessens both the gift AND the giver.
  2. Admit that you do not have everything you need, let alone what you want. Distinguish between the two. Accepting a gift that covers a need is not charity; well, actually it is: but it is charity in its purest form— LOVE. Accepting a gift of desire, be it a gift card to Walmart or Neiman Marcus, are both gifts of love. Respond reverently. [note: I love white chocolate.]
  3. Accept a gift with thanksgiving, especially if given out of a sense of obligation. Whether in an office or extended family, many gifts are given out of a sense of obligation. [Fruit cakes come to mind.] Accept these gifts, no matter how horrible, with external joy and internal wonder. For even gifts of obligation are still gifts. Be thankful.
  4. Accepting a gift, given in sacrifice, will help you grow in humility. Receiving a gift can be particularly difficult when you know that the giver has sacrificed to give you this gift. For whatever reason, they chose to honor you with a gift of their hands, their labor. Why? That is their business. The fact that they have done so should elicit a great sense of humility in you.
  5. Accepting a gift, given in humility, will help you diminish your pride. If it does not, you have a problem. Some people have a grand sense of William Henley’s poem INVICTIS. “…I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul.”They are islands, standing alone against the foe, unconnected to family & community by stubborn pride. Gifts become challenges to their independence and individualism.

Really!?! Their pride is not a symbol of their strength, but a sign of their resistance in becoming part of anything beyond themselves. Isolationism in any form is not safe; it is dangerous. So come on, accept gifts given in humility with humility. Make sense?

  1. You cannot give what you have not received. Unless the love of God is in you, you will run out of strength to love others, and yourself. To receive God’s love is to enable yourself to give, and receive, with abandon. ‘Nough said.
  2. Remember, “To whom much is given much will be required.” Receiving gifts should empower you tremendously. Receiving a gift in genuine humility and graciousness will enable you to both love and give with little thought of what you might receive in return. Thus, though much will be required of you, you will be more than willing to give it gladly.

Thank you, one and all!

Gary

How to Give

http://www.giftideasformen.com

In the spirit of this approaching Christmas season (Hanukkah was over the evening of December 5th) it might be a good time to be reminded of some of the principles of giving. Keep in mind that giving should be meaningful, both for the giver and the receiver. Never give out of rote: give because it is right and good.  Ergo—

How to Give—a Seven Point Primer

  1. Give because it is right. No matter what your definition of right is, giving cannot be construed as anything else. It is not a bribe, a peace-offering, or a one-upmanship on the receiver. It must simply be simply right, nothing else.
  2. Give within your means—with some wee bit of sacrifice. It may never be noticed by the other person. That does not matter. It will secretly mean much much more to you.
  3. Give in terms of the other person’s wants and needs, NOT in terms of what you would like to give them. When my wife and I were first married I would always give her clothing; she could have cared less. Didn’t even take the blouse or scarf out of the box. Then I noticed she loved to read: so I gave her books. Guess what? She hugged & kissed me and vanished for three days reading the new book. I learned to give in terms of what she wanted.
  4. Plan for giving. Always try to squirrel away cash-in-a-stash for later giving. It’s freeing! Giving up 2 cups of coffee a week could free up $20 a month. Get the picture?
  5. Get into the practice of giving. Christmas won’t be such a big thing if you already give to others regularly.
  6. Give graciously. Not lavishly, unless if seems appropriate to you. There is little in this life that expresses genuine love like sacrificial graciousness.
  7. Accept ALL gifts with thankfulness and humility. The one giving them has sacrificed for you. Especially be thankful for hand-made gifts, no matter the quality. They are the most precious of all.

Above all, be thankful that you have the means to give anything at all. Not all people on this planet have the resources to give very much. So, if you are one who does, please do not hold back. And always remember the poor in your giving. God does. Please.

Merry Christmas,

Gary

in your face

People who get in your face don’t give you much room. You are certainly not allowed to interrupt. Horrors! In no uncertain terms, any thought of actually contradicting them is totally out of the question. Even a simple interjection is too much for them to handle.

So, they talk. And talk. And talk. If you dare interrupt, they simply talk louder, and/or faster. Why? They have to stay in control; they have to take the dominant position and hang on to it tenaciously. You do not matter; you have nothing to say which interests them. They have all the information they need; they are right; and when they want your opinion they will tell you what it is.

You’re being “preached-at,” scolded, berated, and cornered. I see this most in husband/wife relationships, and between insecure bosses and their employees.

Throughout life there will be those who cross our paths who must dominate, control, assume authority, and come at us, for no more apparent reason other than they believe they are smarter and more right, than we are. In fact, they never truly discover who we are: they just don’t care about it.

How do we handle such people? Unless we really have to go to the bathroom, we truly just stand there as they browbeat us. My best advice? Humility. Let them unload whatever it is on their mind. We recently had a repairman in our home that was passionate about his Christian faith. He may have been excited, but we were left no room to respond. It was a one way conversation.

I hate being preached at. Whether it is some Christian trying to convert me to his point of view, a philosopher-type endeavoring to drive home a universal point of “Meaning,” or a Telemarketing call, I hate it! I am a person with a studied mind, a passionate heart, and a few opinions of my own. What would give me the right to pound my point of view into someone else with no consideration for their thoughts?

Might I suggest that conversations, healthy ones, at least, need to remain give-‘n-take, maintaining dialog more than monolog. Might I suggest graciousness in listening to someone else’s point of view, tempered with wisdom?

Could it be possible that people who are so assertive must preserve that stance because, deep within, they are not really that certain? Give them some room, and some time: everyone deserves a chance to learn, to amend their ways. Still, no one has a right to be in your face…, even me.

Cordially,

Gary