A Road Map for Life

hi everybody welcome to your move where we help you make better decisions and live with fewer regrets i'm andy stanley and i will be your guide now here's something we all have in common we've all been hurt we've all been betrayed perhaps you've been used perhaps you've even been abused so the question you ask yourself at some point is now what what do you do with all that stuff that's well churning around on the inside well that's what we're going to talk about today right here on your move stick around [Music] so tonight we're talking about the rules for the road um basically the rules for navigating life successfully so i'm going to tell you all the secrets of navigating life successfully no i don't think so but i'm gonna share some of them with you as i have figured these out and um the truth is as we know life is complicated all of us have lived long enough to know that life is complicated but that always takes us by surprise because it just doesn't seem like life should be so complicated and of course sometimes we make it more complicated than it should be and as i was preparing for our time together i thought of a story that is absolutely true even though you're going to think i'm making this up but i have a friend who has two younger brothers and his youngest brothers three boys the youngest of the three uh when he graduated from high school got some of his buddies together and they did their you know senior trip to daytona you know dude and so anyway they made their way down to daytona and a week later um all the friends came back and he just stayed for a year and weeks went by and months went by finally contacted his um family and no surprise here guess what was involved in his decision to stay a girl the girl said that yes so i'm not being criticized yes there was a girl in the story you know surprised of all surprises so a year goes by a little more than a year goes by and he lets him know i'm coming home and i'm bringing her with me and we're getting married i know and so he shows up okay so this is the part he's gonna think i'm making up so my buddy and his the middle son because there's three boys the middle boy my older my friend who's the oldest and the daughter i have a daughter and i know that when i'm when i practice telling the story i thought this kind of sounds like one of jesus parables doesn't it like this except when jesus told a parable he made up a story in order to make a point this is a true story that has no point okay so this is the difference between this story one of jesus parables so no lie so he gets there with the girl and they walk in and lo and behold his girlfriend fiance recognizes his brother the middle one because two years earlier the middle son had graduated from high school i told you you're gonna think i'm making this up and he also went to daytona beach and met said girl and but he came back without her so they decide not to tell the younger brother yeah this is going to be a secret right for how long not that's how long not very okay so sure enough the younger brother marries this girl and i'm not gonna tell you the end it's terrible it did not end well okay so the the point is it is important to know the rules for the road and to obey the rules for the road lest you have a bad ending to your story so uh what i want to do for a few minutes is i want to give you these four rules for the road okay and three of them are really common sense but sometimes it's so important for somebody to remind us of common sense because here's what you know you've lived long enough to know this common sense always it's not always that common is it yeah so rule number one rules for the road number one is this don't travel alone life is better connected life is better with friends you are not made to do life alone don't isolate yourself especially when things aren't going well don't isolate yourself don't listen to that voice and when it comes to not traveling alone here's something we should have learned in high school but most of us didn't when it comes to the people that you're doing life with don't just gravitate toward acceptance don't just gravitate toward acceptance now we don't think about choosing friends or picking friends because that's kind of weird like how would you actually pick a friend i mean would you like interview him nah no would you no so what happens you know that's what happens we don't really choose our friends or who choose who we do life with sometimes we just gravitate toward the group that accepts us first and if you're new to this city or you're new to this community of course your natural inclination like mine would be is to gravitate toward the people who are most you know have who have open arms because again most of us don't want to be isolated so the trick to this is don't be content to do life with people who just like the music you like and don't just like the restaurant you like and don't just watch the shows you like and don't just watch the movies you like find people who not only share your taste in music and food find people who share your values because at the end of the day and this is something we've all learned the hard way but this we never outgrow this principle our friends the people that we're doing life with the people we're journeying with our friends really do determine the direction and the quality of our lives and we think no no no no i choose my own direction you just look back on your own history like i would the friends the people the world that you move in relationally determines determines and sometimes it over determines what you thought you determined for yourself determines the direction and the quality of your life and one more thing on this and i'll move on to number two surround yourself with people who are taking care of themselves and here's why this is important this is just a principle people who are taking care of themselves will be more inclined to take care of yourself and people who don't take care of themselves will be less inclined to watch out and to take care of your self and oftentimes again the first group of people that we interact with in a new job in a new city whatever it might be a new gym that first group of people we're always going to have something in common with them but to wait and to allow that inner circle to be the people that are moving in the direction you're moving in this is how you finish the journey well it's just a principle rule number two for the road and don't judge me too harshly for this one but don't pick up strangers okay i mean haven't you heard this your whole life first when we were little kids it was don't what to strangers don't yeah and then it was don't take what from strangers yeah and then you got a car and it's like don't put any strangers in your car and the problem with all those rules i mean it's it's good advice is that no one ever defines stranger for us it's like we're just supposed to know what a stranger is and you're thinking if a stranger is just somebody i don't know i'm never going to get to know anybody so so i thought since we're all adults that i would define stranger okay because this is this is a big big deal a stranger it's just someone who's strange that's what a stranger is so don't pick up people who are strange now there's a problem with this and the problem with this is just to be honest you're a little bit strange right and i'm a little bit strange so i i brought in the definition okay because this this really is an important point okay so i changed it to this a stranger is someone who is stranger than you how about that okay wherever you are on the strange meter they're just a little bit stranger than you now this is really a really important principle and here's why because the healthier you are you know this the healthier you are the more helpful you can be and when you and i allowed the wrong influences in our life again you think indy are you talking to middle schoolers no this is true for all of us our whole lives when we allow unhealthy people in the inner circle not that we can't have unhealthy friends i mean all of us have unhealthy relatives i mean there's just no way to to avoid all unhealthy people or strange people whatever word you want to use be kind to everyone serve everyone but be cautious the real rule for the road is you know you can hand money out the window but you just don't invite everybody into the car the healthier you are come on you know this the healthier you are the financial healthier you are the physically healthier you are the mentally and the healthier you are ultimately the more helpful you can be so just be careful who you allow into that inner circle so let me ask you this question and we'll go to number three do do you have any strangers in your life do you have any strangers in your life is there anybody in your life and if you're honest they're making you less healthy do you have anybody in your life ladies let me just address you ladies are there any guys in your life and because of your relationship with him you're beginning to doubt yourself he's a stranger he's a stranger ladies you need to stop open the door and invite him out of your car you need to close the door and you know give him five bucks or buy his donuts or whatever is going on but just don't just don't let him drive around in the car with you okay because he's a stranger he's causing you to doubt your self guys that you there may be a stranger in your life that's a friend or it may be somebody you're dating or maybe somebody who's dating you and then you woke up and you were dating them do you ever have that happen it's like oh i think we're dating when did it start i don't know i think she started before i do but now we're dating i don't know how that happened here's the thing everybody is somebody that god loves and everybody is someone we should care for but the healthier you are and the more you take care of yourself you're in a better position to take care of other people and i just want to give you permission if you had any doubts about it there are times in all of our lives in every season of life because we're taking care of ourselves so we can take better care of other people that you just gotta get out of the car and just you know gently it's always awkward nobody goes oh i understand completely no it's always awkward nobody's like you know i actually agree i'm a stranger and i shouldn't be in your life it never goes like that it is always awkward but there are times you just have to invite some people out of your life so that maybe in a different season of life you could be there for them but in a different capacity so don't pick up strangers number three choose a destination and then borrow a map choose a destination and borrow a map here's what i mean by that and this is this is kind of tricky in every season of life and every season of life is a new season that requires a different set of skills every season of life it requires a little bit of different set of skills in order to be unsuccessful single dating married married with kids maybe single again dating again you know and the thing is it's true of all of us every time we move into a new season we've never been there before which means we really don't know what we're doing and by the time we've figured it out we've moved into another season of life and the problem is the mistakes we make in one season we take into the next season we all know this so what i mean by this this rule for the road is simply this determine right now in this season determine what you want your life to look like in this season determine what you want your life to look like in this season and then here's the trick find someone who is a little bit further ahead that has successfully navigated this season and ask them for their map find somebody who is where you want to be ask them how they got there and all of you can do this and i'll tell you the trick here's the trick first of all never ever ask anyone to mentor you never do that never because a mentor sounds like a homework assignment it's like i don't have time for that here's the trick and don't tell anybody i told you this what you need to do you email them or you text them or you talk to them depending on the nature of the relationship and you say this hey if i bought you coffee or if i bought you breakfast i bought you lunch i'd just like to ask you three questions most people will say yes you will learn so much from so many people and then sometimes sometimes at the end of the coffee you know you're paying then you say hey would it be okay if in the future sometime i reached out and if i had some more questions and most of them will say yes and you just got yourself a mentor but don't tell them it will scare them off okay and and i know you know this but again common sense wisdom is not having all the answers wisdom is knowing what you don't know and having the humility to ask someone who does that's what wisdom is and i'm not knocking your friends your peers the people who are in the same season of life that you're in i mean they don't know any more than you do so you're just kind of sharing a little bit of your ignorance but to find someone who is where you want to be and to get their map that is the wise thing to do fourth one don't carry any unnecessary baggage rule for the road number four don't carry any unnecessary baggage don't raise your hand do you have baggage i know you do because after 18 we all have some right i mean we just all do we've all been hurt we've all been betrayed we've all been in some cases abandoned so we all come into adulthood with with some baggage we don't need to be ashamed of that but we certainly don't need to carry it any longer than necessary because baggage causes leaves us kind of eating up on the inside right and it leaves us insecure it always leaves us insecure even though on the outside we look so secure it always leaves us a little angry because we're out of balance a few months ago i was listening to the um tim ferriss podcast i think it's called the tim ferriss show and uh he was interviewing amanda palmer who's an artist you may or may not be familiar with and amanda was telling this long long drawn out story it was very interesting about a friend of hers and i don't didn't get her friend's name and i don't think he's anybody famous but in her conversation with him he made a statement that i hit pause and stopped and wrote down and it just i just think this this statement this quote is so powerful and here's what he said to amanda at some point he said this if you don't deal with your demons they go into the cellar of your soul and lift weights whoo when i first heard this i'll be honest my first thought was i wish i'd come up with that that is so good now i'm gonna have to give credit which i always do if you don't deal with your demons this is so this is so true if you don't deal with your demons they go into the cellar of your soul and they lift weights in other words if you don't deal with them it doesn't get better they get bigger and you get better and you and i carry baggage that we don't need to carry from one season to the next one relationship to the next the apostle paul who's you know stepped onto the pages of history as somebody who hated christians so if you hate christians he's your guy okay hated christians arrested him you know and then he becomes one becomes a jesus follower writes letters to first century christians and in one of these letters he gives us his version of that quote here's what he said he says okay let's be realistic you're going to get angry you're going to be angry you're going to be angry because you're going to get hurt you're going to be angry because well life is life be angry there's a time and a season for that but don't sin in other words don't allow your anger to drive your behavior don't let anger be the boss of you so what do we do paul he says well let me tell you be angry but don't sin and put a time limit on it don't let it just go on and on and on from season to season in relationship to relationship don't be angry but don't sin and don't let the sun go down while you're still angry and this was a common saying in the first century and it wasn't literal it's not like hey you got to deal with this before the sun goes down it's like yeah what if the sun was already down do i get like 24 hours so it's not literal he's saying he you know what he's saying he's saying what we kind of already know don't just let it go on and on and on you've got to deal with this you've got to cap this you've got to stop this don't let the sun go down while you're still angry and don't give and it uses kind of the same terminology as the quote and don't give the devil space don't get to give the devil a foothold don't give give the devil a toehold because if you do do you know what he's going to do he's going to go down in the cellar of your soul and build a gem and if you don't deal with your demons they're going to move in and they're just going to lift weights in the cellar of your soul you're like andrew we're talking about literal demons and literal devil you know what in terms of this principle it doesn't matter what you believe about that because you know intuitively instinctively there is something happening here that all of us have experienced from some time so let me ask you a different way you got any demons down there lifting weights if you're not sure ask around the people closest to you know the answer to this and if you ask them and when you ask them they step back before they answer you know the answer right because here's the tragedy of carrying around too much baggage the people that suffer the most are the people we love the most so this doesn't you know the irony is this doesn't hurt the people that hurt us it hurts us and it hurts the people that have nothing to do with the people who've heard us so paul's point is deal with this as soon as possible don't carry any of this any longer than necessary don't carry it season to season don't carry it relationship to relationship again the only person that gets hurt you know this is you then he goes on this seems so real unrealistic he says come on get rid of he makes it sound so easy doesn't he get rid of all bitterness and the idea is pick it up take it to the street and leave it pick it up take it to the street and leave bag it and leave it get rid of all bitterness rage anger along with every form of malice and and i know i've been doing this a long time when i stand up here and say something like that you're thinking okay well andy yeah well like so your mama hurt your feelings one time and you were bitter and you don't if you heard my story you might be thinking if you heard my story you may give me a pass you may say you know what your story is so bad you sit over here in the past section you do not have to get rid of your anger and bitterness you hang on to it you need to hang on to that because if you don't hang on to it you're going to be like letting them off so you get a pass so the question is is this even possible is it possible is it really possible well it must be and in just a minute i'm going to make a suggestion about an exercise you can work through to do this but then next paul connects what he's saying to jesus now if you're not a christian or not a jesus follower we're not a church person and you know somebody paid you to be here somebody bribed you to watch this you know i get that i would just say to you figure out a way to get rid of your bitterness because the demons and the seller of your soul are just lifting weights and i know i'm just going to give you the benefit of the doubt i know your anger is justified and i'm going to assume your bitterness is justified and i'm going to assume that if you got up here and told your story we would be like well no wonder but for your sake and for the sake of the people that you love would you figure out a way to get rid of it so here's what paul says next he says if you're a christian this isn't just advice you have to do this because if you're a christian there's way more at stake than simply you he says be kind and compassionate to one another why because treating people well is our brand treating people with kindness is our brand treating people with kindness and compassion isn't extra credit treating people with kindness and compassion is our brand because jesus said the way people are going to know that you're my follower is what you do at 11 o'clock on sunday morning no the way people are going to know that you're my follower is by how well you treat other people so anything that keeps you from treating people well is in the way of following jesus unresolved hurt unresolved hurt unresolved abandonment unresolved whatever it might be always gets in the way of love so why not get rid of it and now he tells us how forgiving each other easy for me to say standing up here i know easy for me but important for all of us and this is why the next line this is why the next line is so crucial this is why the next line was probably difficult for the apostle paul to ever get his mind and heart around forgiving each other just as in christ god forgave you we as christians do not forgive people because they deserve to be forgiven they don't we forgive because we are forgiven we cancel other people's debts even the people that have racked up a lot of debt we cancel other people's debts because our debts have been canceled because the way to understand is this the hurt from your past and my past the abuse from your past and my past the betrayal it creates baggage it creates baggage because what it does it essentially opens an account because the person that hurt you the most and the person that betrayed you the deepest those people essentially took something from you which means what it means they owe you what do they owe you perhaps they owe you your entire childhood perhaps they they owe you that first marriage maybe they owe you the opportunity to tuck your kids into bed at night they took something from you which means they owe you which means the account that you have opened stands open the account is open and you are waiting to be paid back and that's what creates the baggage the waiting the open account the hoping the longing the injustice but here's the good news and the bad news the good news isn't the bad news is this it's never going to happen that's good news because you can close the account it's bad news because you wish the account would stay open long enough for them to close the account for you by paying back what they owe you but come on let's just be honest we're adults they can't pay you back they couldn't even if they wanted to that they can't return the past they can't restore that marriage they can't give you that time back with your kids they can't restore your reputation so how foolish of us even though it's completely understandable for how foolish of us to keep an open account with somebody waiting to be paid back when they're not going to pay us back and they couldn't pay us back and all the time we wait our demons are lifting weights moving with us from season to season relationship to relationship the way that we get rid of all bitterness rage anger along with every form of malice is by closing the account by deciding do you know what i'm going to do precisely what they don't deserve for me to do i am going to forgive them because forgiveness is a decision but more specifically and this may help you forgiveness is a decision to cancel a debt the way that you move ahead is by closing the account and to close the account requires three things that i want to give you real quick if you have your phone you may want to take a picture of this next screen so here's how this works the first step there's three things the first one's real easy the first one is identify who you've already done that right identify who who took from you who took from you and then number two this is the part that everybody skips and this is where people get hung up with canceling debt and with closing those accounts you have to determine what was taken from you as long as you are trying to forgive generally you will never have specific freedom so the second part of this is so critical and this is the part most people skip you need to sit down and you need to write down exactly what they took from you make a list they took your dignity he took my time she took my 20s he took my opportunity for education you just need to make a list because you have an open account and they actually owe you and they actually can't pay you back but you can't cancel the debt until you know exactly what's been taken and for some people this is a very very painful exercise but for some people this one step is the free is the key to being free to move on and then third you declare it canceled you declare it canceled here's my list and god i have written down what they have taken from me and they can't give it back anyway so why hang on to this even if they showed up tomorrow they can't give back to me what they've taken from me i'm deciding to say you don't owe me any more and when those old feelings rise up and when those emotions swell up you stop and say no that's an old debt it's been canceled and over time do what happens our emotions begin to catch up with the reality of the decision that we made now because i know how some of us are thinking this is not about fairness okay forgiveness is not fair in most cases justice and fairness are out of reach this is about freedom freedom from the control of those who hurt you that you continue to allow to hurt you because you won't close the account so if this strikes a chord with you i mean those first three you know rules for the road they're kind of common sense you may have some work to do there but i'm telling you to travel with unnecessary baggage is to ensure that your future will never be as bright as it could be to travel with unnecessary baggage guarantees that your future relationships will be more complicated than they need to be so would you get a loan and would you identify who would you determine what and then would you declare it cancelled and don't carry any unnecessary baggage cancel those debts close those accounts and keep them closed and over time those voices and those conversations will grow weaker and weaker and one day you'll recognize and realize they're gone for good and you will be free you will be free to become the person that god created you ultimately to be [Music] you

Channel: Your Move with Andy Stanley

Views: 38,050

Rating: 4.874063 out of 5

Keywords: Andy Stanley, Your Move with Andy Stanley, Your Move, better decisions, fewer regrets, how to, how to be better at life, depression, depressed, self help, how to be happier, how to have a good life, how to make better choices, choices, decisions, regret, motivation, inspiration

Id: Bs0_r6FAe5g

Length: 28min 28sec (1708 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 05 2020