By Chris WittsWednesday 10 Apr 2024Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
Back in 1972 the movie came out. Play it again, Sam. And you had Woody Allen and Diane Keaton. And Woody Allen says to her, ‘I’ve figured out the secret to being successful in life’. She looked at him as if to say, ‘Well, how come he can’t even tie up his shoelaces? What would you know about the secret of being successful in life?’
And Woody Allen in the party scene says 80% of being successful is first and foremost just showing up. Now I wonder what he’s really saying here. Perhaps he means that life can be successful if we apply ourselves and turn up to whatever we have to do, being attentive to life or giving ourselves to the task at hand, whatever that might be and not wishing to be somewhere else. So I think that sometimes we waste a lot of time and energy wishing we were doing something else or being somewhere else.
I’m also talking about our need to accept ourselves for who we are and opening our heart and mind to what’s happening. I think it’s like a willingness to embrace who we are today.
What is your perspective?
So, do you live an open life? Do you love and appreciate yourself and others and try to understand who you are? And, yes, you are a child of God. God has made you.
But I’m wondering why we spend so much energy trying to be somebody else or comparing ourselves to others. And I believe that once we know that God loves us, warts and all, we’re better able to accept life as it is every day. Even when we’re not feeling very positive about life. It’s good to have friends who support and accept us, but this can become a problem when it’s something we must have. It’s like saying, Yeah, well, look, I’m OK as long as long as others think that I’m OK.
So we need to stop being afraid of what others think of us, so having a meaningful relationship with God actually helps us cope better with life. So another way of putting it is what we call living in denial. It was the Canadian singer songwriter Leonard Cohen who sang the lyrics, ‘Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.’
And that’s a good insight. Actually, I think he was saying, ‘don’t think you’ve got to be perfect to accomplish the best in life.’
And then Rabbi Harold Kushner he wrote a book called How Good Do We Have to Be? And part of what he says is, ‘the more I have dealt with people’s problems and the more I’ve learned to look at my own life, the more convinced, he says, I’ve become that a lot of misery could be traced back to this one mistaken notion that we need to be perfect for people to love us. And we forget that love is meant to be more than that.’
The trick to perfection
So falling short of perfection, I mean, I can’t be perfect and neither can you. And yet the amazing thing is that God uses us the way we are. We’re sinful, limited. We’re weak, and yet God uses us to let His light shine in. So can you accept yourself the way you are? Can I live with a sense of contentment within my own limitations?
And I think once we sort that out, we could save a lot of personal heartache. We say, I wish I was like the other person and really, when you think about it, it’s quite ridiculous. It’s like saying I wish I could fly. These are really un unhealthy attitudes. Maybe at school you were picked on and thought that you weren’t smart enough.
Have you said recently, I could do something worthwhile with my life if I had more ability? Now Jesus told the story in Matthew 25 of three servants who had to invest his money while he went away. Now two of these servants did well. The third one didn’t. He was condemned because he hid the 1000 coins.
So we have a sense in which we may have ability in one thing but not so much ability in the other. And yet we shouldn’t become discouraged because, actually, God then moves toward us in love and says, nothing shall ever separate you from my love. So I think it’s all about accepting life as it comes.
Let’s Pray
Heavenly Father. There’s a tremendous lesson here. Help us, Lord, to look at ourselves realistically. And to know that day by day, we can accept ourselves for who we are knowing that you love us. Amen.