Be All You Can Be: A Challenge to Stretch Your God-Given Potential (6 page)

Most people are vulnerable when they are stretching. When a rubber band is pulled taut, it’s much easier to break. A runner who’s stretching for the wire is in a precarious position. If you were to push him a little bit you could knock him clear off his course. Every energy, every muscle, every fiber, is aiming toward a goal, leaving the runner vulnerable.

If you’re not stretching, you’re in a much better position to defend yourself; your muscles are naturally defensive. Though most people begin their lives by stretching, they soon discover that this position leaves them open to attack, so they begin to withdraw. They start to equate stretching with pain. Before long they’re not willing to stretch anymore.

Those who continue to stretch will find themselves vulnerable to criticism. Unfortunately, the road to success is paved with critics. They’re ready and waiting to point out how imperfectly other people do what they themselves are unable or unwilling to do.

Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine, was attacked continually for his creative, inventive work in the medical field. He found that criticism came in three stages. The first stage is when people tell you that you’re wrong—it won’t work. After they’ve seen you get some success under your belt, they say that what you’re doing isn’t really that important. Finally, after they see that it’s important, they’ll say that they knew you would do it all along. If you’re stretching, the best defense to these critics is the fruit of your labor. Don’t feel that you have to pull out of that stretch position to defend yourself. Just go out and produce the fruit. Those who recognize fruit will appreciate it and those who don’t recognize fruit will criticize you whether you produce it or not.

We’re also vulnerable to misunderstanding. Often people whose own motives are wrong will feel threatened by us if we are stretching to be our best. They react by questioning the validity of our motives, accusing us of doing our best for some impure purpose.

Not only are we vulnerable to the reactions of others, but we can be vulnerable to ourselves. We are often harder on ourselves than other people are. If we have no goals, we won’t recognize failure, but if we’re stretching for success, we will fail from time to time. We need to learn how to deal with that. Don’t ever let failure become final. Be aware that discouragement is failure’s partner. The best way to pull yourself out of discouragement is to surround yourself by people who are encouragers. Get a friend who really understands the value of affirmation, who really believes in you. Do you know the best way to get encouragers around you? Become an encourager yourself.

We’ve talked about criticism, misunderstanding, failure, and discouragement. Take about five minutes and evaluate yourself: Where are you vulnerable?

The most important time to affirm people is when they are stretching. If you want to be a cheerleader to a friend, be a cheerleader when he or she is really moving out and stretching. Too many people affirm too late. I think there are times when we’re afraid to encourage risk takers, because in doing so we identify with them; we join them out there on the limb. If they fail, we fail too. But remember that even a tombstone will say good things about a fellow after he’s dead. Don’t be a tombstone encourager. Affirm early.

Affirm often. Don’t wait for the race to be won, but encourage each step forward. Affirm immediately. The effect of an encouraging word loses its strength as time lapses. If you sense that a friend is starting to slip, give immediate affirmation before the slip has a chance to become a full-scale slide. Affirm personally, and don’t be afraid to affirm in front of others. Nothing is more encouraging than to receive honest praise in front of your peers.

Most people never learn that stretching never stops. We have a pattern of stretching and resting, stretching and resting. I understand the need for recuperation and restoration, but the problem is that most people stretch a little and rest a lot. Pretty soon they have a vacation mentality, a retirement mind-set.

Too many people stop learning because they have come to believe that you go through twelve years of school and then you go to college for four years and then your education is over. But a good education really does nothing more than prepare you to stretch and learn for the rest of your life. Then there are people who stop trying because of bad past experiences. They say, “I tried that once before,” or, “I’ve already done that.” They allow one failure to put a lid on their abilities.

When you stop stretching, you become
boring
. Nothing bores me like people who haven’t had a new thought in the last year. They bore the socks off of me. That’s why I think it’s so important that in every area of our lives we continue to stretch.

The other day my father, who is retired and living in Florida, called me and said, “Son, I just want to tell you that life is so exciting. I’ve got more work than I’ve ever had in my life. I’m scheduling more meetings; I’m traveling more. My correspondence is getting so heavy that I’ve got to get a secretary. Life is not boring at all; I’ve been so busy.” My dad is in his early sixties now, and I have no doubt that in his early eighties he’ll still be excited about life. He is determined to live until he dies.

Why do people stop stretching? Let me give you four quick reasons. The first is that they have surrounded themselves with people who are both bored and boring. Stay around people who are vitally alive if you want your own blood to continue to flow. This is the reason so many elderly people die fast when they enter retirement centers where there is nothing for them to do. When all of a sudden they realize all there is to do in life is watch the sun set, they’re in trouble. They’re going to be setting themselves.

Number two, work ceases to be a challenge. For many people, work is nothing more than an assembly line, and so it becomes automatic. That’s why we always need new goals, new visions, or new dreams.

Many people stop stretching because they have learned to get by with shortcuts. Nothing is more damaging to growth than getting by with second best. There is a difference between taking shortcuts and working smart. We all want to work smart. Working smart takes less effort but is more effective. Shortcuts not only require less effort, but they’re less effective. So I’m not talking about working smart, knowing priorities, and understanding how to arrange your work so you can do it more quickly. I’m talking about settling for less than the best.

I find that many pastors learn early in their careers that they can just open their Bibles, study a text a little bit, and get up and “wing it.” They stop taking the time to write their messages out and make sure they have developed some depth. I know many pastors who have to move to a new church every three years because they’ve used up their resources; they’ve taken shortcuts all their lives and forgotten how to study.

Many times we stop stretching because we see our value based on our relationships, not our resources. Marriage is one example.

If we stretched as hard after our marriages to make our mates happy as we did before our marriages, we wouldn’t have marriage problems. After the wedding, we figure that our spouses will love us just because we’re married. So we stop stretching, and our marriages stop growing.

Let me apply it in another area—work. I’ve known people to start a new job and work really hard for six months. Then they become friends with the boss and start slacking off. They mistakenly think a relationship means they don’t have to pull as hard on their resources. They stop stretching.

Most people will look back at their stretching experiences as their finest experiences. Why? Growth is happiness. The happiest people in the world are growing people.

We have in our society a lot of false hopes for happiness. We have what I call
destination disease
. People think that when they arrive at a certain point, they’ll be happy. When they retire, when they get rid of this job, when they take that trip, when they meet that goal—then they’ll be happy. They’re goal-oriented, and there’s nothing wrong with being goal-oriented, but they have not learned to enjoy the journey as much as the arrival. Your happiest moments happen along the way, not at the end of the trip.

There’s another false hope for happiness that I call
someone sickness. That’s when you say, If I could just meet that person; if I could just marry that woman, I’d be happy
. But you are the only one who can make yourself happy. No one can bring happiness to someone who is miserable. When we begin to take responsibility for our own personal happiness and realize that it’s through growth and growing experiences, even though they may be painful, that we become happy, then we’re really going to achieve.

Another false hope for happiness is what I call
backslider’s blues
. That’s the affliction of people who are always talking about the good old days. They’re always talking about the past, which was always better than the present. They see only the good things, neither remembering, nor wanting to remember, the bad times. As the saying goes, “If ifs and buts were candies and nuts, we’d all have a Merry Christmas.”

One last false hope for happiness is the problem-free plague. There are many people who want to get in a problem-free society, and they’re plagued with that hope.
They say, Boy, if I just wouldn’t have problems, I would be happy
. No, no, no! Problems have nothing to do with your happiness. In fact, in your stretching periods you will probably have more problems than at any other time, and those will be the greatest times of your life.

Few people stretch all their lives, but those few people inspire the rest of us. There is something within us that is thrilled to see a man or a woman attempt the heroic. The pioneer, the successful entrepreneur, and the victorious athlete all speak to us about the ability of the human spirit to achieve monumental accomplishments when properly motivated. Vicariously we share in their achievements and find hope in our own lives through them. What we need to do is to become inspirers of others, and the only way we’re ever going to do that is to throw our caps over the wall. When others see us climbing our fences, they, too, will begin to climb theirs.

In the earlier part of this century, Charles Lindbergh thrilled the world by flying across the Atlantic. In his story, he tells how as he was going across the United States and over Canada and Newfoundland, he would look down, spotting places where he could land in case of problems. But there came a time when all he saw was the Atlantic Ocean when he looked down. “It was at that moment I realized there was no turning back; there was no place to land.” Charles Lindbergh had thrown his cap over the wall, and he inspires us because of it. He stretched.

Let’s get to the application of this lesson. How can we stretch to success?
Discover your potential
. Get near somebody who believes in you. Discovery always comes in an encouraging environment. Find someone who will help you discover who you are and what you can do. Do something that you enjoy. I feel so sorry for people who work in jobs they don’t enjoy and live in places they don’t like. If you don’t like where you live and you don’t like your work, why don’t you quit your work and move somewhere else? Discover your potential by doing something you enjoy. Then remove the “if onlys” from your life. As long as you have “if onlys”—if only I could be there and if only I could do this, if only I could be that—you’ll never discover your real potential, because you’ll always be excusing yourself for what you are.

Dedicate your potential
. Give your motives to God. If he has your motives, he has everything. Dedicate your potential by giving your best to others.

Develop your potential
. You can develop your potential by beginning to accept personal responsibility. Then, realize that God is interested in your development. God is even more interested in your development than he is in your mistakes. Forget your mistakes; start developing. Never limit your potential. Don’t you dare sell yourself short. Fifty years ago Johnny Weismuller was the greatest swimmer of all time. He had fifty swimming records. Today, thirteen-year-old girls break his records every time there’s a swim meet. Don’t limit your potential.

chapter 4

VICTORIOUS BECAUSE OF A VISION