- Here's something I bet
we all have in common, I'm kind of ready for things
to get back to normal, aren't you? I mean, it's kinda been fun,
it's sort of been a break. I say fun, for some people
it's been fun to have a break for other people
it's just 100% stress and we're all somewhere
on that continuum. But for the most part,
I think we're all ready for things to get
back to normal. But in light of what
we've experienced and in light of
what we've learned, it would probably be a shame for us to just go back
to the normal normal. So right now there
are a lot of people talking about the new normal. In fact, I bet you've
talked about the new normal. Now, as you know,
some of the new normal may be forced on us,
but here's the thing and here's what we're
gonna talk about for the next three weeks, if we're wise, we will
pause and ask the question, what have I learned? What have we learned? And what do we
wanna carry forward? We'll pause and ask the
question, what have I learned? What have we learned? And what do we want
to carry forward? Now here's something
I've learned, in fact, here's something
I think we've all learned that the producers of
the "Mad Max" movies you remember from the late
70s and 80s and early 90s, the "Mad Max" movies, the
producers had it wrong. The producers had it wrong because here's what
we've all learned, the most valuable commodity, the most valuable commodity
during an apocalypse is not oil. It's what? It's toilet paper. And I think somebody should
make a movie about that. And of course the perfect title
would be "Game of Thrones," but that's taken. So the question we're gonna
ask for the next few weeks is how can we take
what we've learned and carry it into the future
or to the title of this series, How Can We Be Better For It? How can we be better as a result of what we've
all just experienced? It was forced on us, but
we're coming through this, how can we be better for
what we've just experienced? And if we don't stop and ask
this question, we will forget. And it would be a shame
because pain without gain, you know this, pain without
any gain is a shame. Now I realize for some of you, you are not ready
to ask this question because your
response to me so far is Andy I can't think about
how to be better for it because I'm still in it. In fact, I'm just beginning
to suffer the consequences of what we've just been through. So, hey, thanks. Maybe later I'll check back in, but I can't begin
asking the question how can I be better for it, because I'm right
in the middle of it. But I just wanna push back
on that just a little bit. And I realize I'm stepping out because I don't know
your circumstances. I don't know your pain. I don't know what you're
going through right now. I don't know how
this has affected you and your family specifically. But here's what I do know,
if we don't pay attention, we will not benefit from it. And our tendency will be to
rush back to the old normal and miss the lessons
learned in this new season or this new normal. Now to help us understand
this just a little bit better, C.S. Lewis many years ago in his little book
"The Problem of Pain" explores this very tension
of what should we learn and when is it too
early to begin learning? Here's what he wrote in
"The Problem of Pain," he said, "My own experience
is something like this, "I'm progressing along
the path of life, "in my ordinary contentedly
fallen and godless condition "absorbed in a merry meeting
with my friends for the morrow "or a bit of work that
tickles my vanity, "when suddenly a stab
of abdominal pain "that threatens serious disease, "or perhaps a headline
in the newspaper "that threatens all
of us with destruction "sends this whole pack
of cards tumbling down." And at first he says,
"At first I'm overwhelmed "that all my little happinesses
look like broken toys, "but then slowly and
reluctantly bit by bit, "I try to bring myself
into the frame of mind "that I should be
in at all times. "And perhaps by God's
grace, I succeed." "And for a day or two," isn't that our experience? "And for a day or two, "I become a creature
consciously dependent on God "and drawing its strength
from the right sources. "But the moment the
threat is withdrawn," and you already know
what comes next, right? And the reason you know,
and the reason I know is because it's our
story, we've been there. For some of you, your
story went like this two or three years ago,
maybe five years ago, your husband or wife
came to you and said, "Okay, if you don't change,
I'm done, I'm out of here. "We've talked and talked
and counseled and counseled, "and I don't see any
permanent change." And suddenly he or she
had your attention. You sat up straight and
you began making changes. You began coming home earlier. You started listening better. You paid more
attention to the kids. You paid more attention to what
he asked and what she asked. And suddenly you became
a better husband, you became a better wife and the marriage got
better for a while. But the moment the
threat was withdrawn, you began to retreat to your
old ways, your old normal, your normal normal. Or maybe you're a single woman and maybe your story
was something like this that you discovered,
or you at least thought that you were pregnant and
it scared you to death. And suddenly your religious past came crashing down on top of you and maybe you prayed for the
first time in a long time. And you begged God
and you promised God and you promised change and then you discovered
that you weren't pregnant, and you were so relieved and
you were a different person, and you behaved yourself and you stepped back
into the standards that you had always embraced
growing up, for a while, but once the threat
was withdrawn, you began to drift back into
those normal normal ways. Or maybe your story is this,
you had that scary physical, and your doctor looked
at you and said, "Look, we've talked
about this before "and if you don't make changes, "you will not be around to
play with your grandchildren. "You certainly won't be around "to play with your
great grandchildren." And he or she got
your attention. And you went home
and you got serious and you dieted and you exercised and people began to say,
hey, you're looking better. And you felt better,
everything was better. And for a while,
you stuck with it. But then what happened? Well, once the
threat was withdrawn, you drifted back
to normal normal. And all of these scenarios,
and there are more, you've got your own story, all of these scenarios make me
think what is wrong with us? Why do we have to be led
to the brink of disaster before we are willing
to make the changes that we've known all
along, we need to make? Back to C.S Lewis, here's
how he finishes this idea. "But the moment that threat
is withdrawn my whole nature," and look at this
verb, this is great, "my whole nature leaps
back to the toys. "God has had me for but 48
hours and then only by dint "of taking everything
else away from him. "But let Him sheathe
that sword for a moment." And here's what I
want us to avoid, and this is why we're
gonna talk about this for the next few weeks. Because in order for us
to gain through this pain, we have to be intentional. Otherwise, we will
all drift back to the normal that
we used to have and never learn
anything from it. And that's why I wanted to
poke and prod just a little bit for the next few weeks. Listen to how he
finishes this idea, "But let Him sheathe
that sword for a moment, "and I behave like a puppy "that when the
hated bath is over," if you have dogs, you know
exactly where this is going, "I behave like a puppy that
when the hated bath is over, "I shake myself as dry
as I can and I race off "to reacquire my
comfortable dirtiness, "if not in the
nearest manure heap, "at least in the
nearest flower bed." Now here's the thing,
and you know this, this is true of all of us, it is human nature to
return to bad habits once the pain associated with
those bad habits is gone. It's human nature to
return to our bad habits once the pain associated with
those bad habits is gone. In other words,
it's human nature to wanna get back to
whatever normal was. But here's the thing,
and you know this, aspiring to normal, c'mon, that's not
very inspiring. So here's the question we're
gonna wrestle to the ground for the next three weeks,
how can we, how can you, how can we be better for it? In other words, you've heard, don't let a good thing
go to waste, that's true. Well, don't let a bad
thing go to waste. In fact, in this situation, it would be worse to allow
a bad thing to go to waste. And it is not too
soon, and again, I don't know your circumstances, but my hunch is this,
it is not too soon to begin asking this question. It's not too soon to
begin this discussion. It's not too soon to
begin taking inventory. And to ask the question,
what have I been doing that almost led to my undoing? What have I been doing that
almost led to my undoing? Or the flip side is simply this, what should I begin doing now? What should I begin doing that I should have
been doing all along? So today what I wanna do to
get the discussion kicked off, I wanna talk about
three specific areas. And honestly the first two are gonna be a
little bit painful. The first two, you may feel like I'm being a
little bit insensitive that I'm doing more meddling
than speaking or preaching, but I want you to
hang in there with me. And the reason it's
gonna be uncomfortable, it feels like it's too
soon to talk about this, but it is not too soon. While the pressure is on, this is the time when
we learn the most. This is the time when we
gain the most perspective and what a shame it would
be to lose these lessons, to lose these learnings and
to lose this perspective. So I wanna talk about
three areas today and the next week
I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna talk
about your superpower. You have a super power. You have a special
ability that empowers you to be better for anything
you face in life. So next week, we're
gonna come back and talk about your superpower. So don't miss next week. But to sort of get us
started, let's jump in here. How can you be, this
is number one of three, how can you be better
for it financially? How can you be better for
what we just went through? How can you be better
for it financially? What have you been doing that almost led to your
undoing financially? Or perhaps what
have you been doing that actually led to
your undoing financially? What financial habit
caught up with you in this difficult season? Or ask it this way, what do you wish you'd
been doing financially that would have set you up
to be in a better place now? And whatever comes to mind and you have an answer
to this question, here's my challenge, begin now. Now is the time to face up
to two financial realities. In fact, there are several
financial realities we need to face up to, but if you will use the pressure
you're feeling right now, even perhaps the chaos that
are in your finances right now to begin asking these
important questions, you will be better for it later. And I just wanna talk about
two financial realities that are looming
large for many of us. Number one, I want
is better than I owe. If you have been a
part of this broadcast or part of one of our
churches for very long, you've heard us talk
about this before, I want is better than I owe. In other words, it is better to go without
things you don't need, than to owe money on
things you don't need. It is better to go without
things you don't need, there's a tension there, than to owe money on
things you don't need, there's a tension there. There's a tension
either way you go. But the tension of I owe is far worse than the
tension of I want. The second financial reality
that looms large right now that serves as a reminder and perhaps sets you up to
be better for it is this, a financial hole, and you're
gonna hate me for this, but a financial hole
is always due in part to a lack of self control. That a financial hole, and I made it rhyme
so you remember it, a financial hole is
usually maybe always, but let's just say usually
due to a lack of self control. Let me illustrate it this way, before this crisis,
you had this thought, if only I had more money,
if only I had more money, if only I made more money. During the crisis
you had this thought, if only I'd saved more money, if only I had saved more money, which is the same thing as
saying if only in the past, I had exercised
better self control. That a financial hole
is usually due in part to a lack of self control. And if you are facing
the consequences of a lack of self
control financially now is the time to write that
down, to learn this lesson and never ever do what
you did in the past again, so that you would be
ready for the future. The writer of Proverbs
states it this way, and he gives us a word picture that is really not very relevant
to our current situation, or certainly irrelevant
to our current culture. But it's a powerful word
picture from ancient times. Here's what he wrote, he said, "Like a city whose
walls are broken through "is a person who
lacks self control. "Like a city whose walls
are broken through..." Again for us, this
is meaningless, but in ancient times,
the walls around a city represented security and peace
and prosperity and safety. And when an enemy would come, they would pick the
weakest part of the wall and they would use
weapons of siege warfare to eventually break
through or create a breach or a break in the wall and the enemy would
pour through the wall. And here's what the
writer is saying, that a city, when the
walls are broken through the people within the city,
they lose their security, they lose their safety and
they lose their autonomy. They lose their ability to
control their own lives. And here's his point, that
a lack of self control, and this is true for
any area of life, a lack of self control
leads to a loss of control. That a lack of self
control in any area of life ultimately leads to
a loss of control. And let me ask you this, what do you want pretty much
more than anything in life? You want control of your life. The key to having
control of your life is to exercise self control. And consequently, because of
what we've just been through, you may be learning this lesson
the hard way financially. I want you to be better for it. You wanna be better for it. Now is the time to take
some of these simple ideas, these common sense
ideas and elevate them so that you don't
pass this way again if in fact something like this
were ever to happen again. A lack of self control always
leads to a loss of control. Now here's something
you've heard before, I bet somewhere in the past, somebody either gave
you this advice, or you heard someone talking about having been
given this advice. And the advice was to
have three to six months of savings set aside in
case of an emergency. Have you ever heard that before? Everybody's nodding. Yes, you've heard that before. And here's my hunch, when you
heard that for the first time, or maybe you read that in
a book for the first time you thought to yourself,
that's a really good idea, I should set aside three to
six months of living expenses, just in case there's
an emergency. And if you took that advice, advice which requires
extraordinary self control, then you are better for what
we've just been through. If you didn't take that
advice, you're wishing you had. Now is the time. Now is the time to create
a plan to set money aside in case there's
a financial bump. That is wisdom. That way, when your
walls are attacked, they will not be broken through because your self control in
creating an emergency fund has prepared you for the future. But an emergency
fund requires what? It requires extraordinary
self control. So decide now to start now. How can you be better? How can you be better
for it financially? Simple, you've heard
it 1,000 times, save more, spend less, get
out and stay out of debt, save more, spend less, get
out and stay out of debt. One more thing on
the financial piece, if this particular season has
hit you particularly hard, your tendency will be to
blame the virus and your boss and perhaps the economy. And that's a mistake. Certainly the virus
contributed to it. Certainly your working
situation contributed to it. Certainly the economy
has contributed to it, but here's what I wanna
say, and this is hard, perhaps you contributed
to your situation as well, and you must own
that slice of the pie and now is the time to own it, and now is the time
to make decisions so that you never face
this situation again. Take responsibility
for your finances, embrace all that common sense
you've heard your whole life, exercise self control and
prepare for the future. Take notes, make a plan,
decide to be better for it. Next up, number two, how can you be better
for it relationally? How can you be better
for it relationally? What have you experienced these
past few months relationally that you wanna carry
forward into the future? I think one of the things
that we've all experienced is the value of friendship
and the value of our friends. But there may be a negative
side to all this for you. And if so, I want
you to pay attention. Perhaps you've noticed,
or you've experienced some unaddressed cracks
in your marriage. Things that you had decided
to put to the periphery, things that came up from time
to time but you were busy and the old normal
allowed you to ignore what was right there
in front of you. Perhaps what you've noticed
is a lack of common ground with one of your kids, maybe a lack of common
ground with all of your kids. You're spending so much
time with your family and you recognize I've never really developed
a actual relationship with one or all of my kids,
because I've been so busy. I mean, isn't it true that quarantining has
highlighted the good and the not so
good relationally? So here's the opportunity
I don't want you to miss, this is so important, COVID-19 may actually
serve as a wake up call to you relationally if
you wake up, so wake up. If there are cracks in
your relationships at home, now is the time to address them. Rushing back to normal
is going to empower you to continue to ignore them. You know this, relationship
problems don't fix themselves. So now is the time to address
these relationship issues. Right now you have a
little bit of extra time, but more importantly, you've
got a little bit more pressure because of what's going on or
what's not going on at home. And before you begin
pointing fingers, it's the same with
your finances, own your slice of
the conflict pie, own your slice of
the conflict pie. In fact, if you get this
right, your story of COVID-19 and eventually this is
just a story we tell, your story of
COVID-19 may be this, that it was actually
the catalyst that
saved our marriage. If you pay attention
to this attention, and if you do the difficult
work that faces you right now. Rushing back to normal will only allow what's
bad to get worse. Right now what we're facing
is forcing us to face perhaps what we've neglected. Perhaps your story will be
this, COVID-19 was the catalyst for repairing my
relationship with my son. Perhaps your story will be
COVID-19 was the catalyst for repairing my relationship
with my daughter. Relationally speaking, and I don't think we
can exaggerate this, all of this pain with no gain would certainly be
an extraordinary
extraordinary shame. Last thing, number three, how can you be better
for it personally? How can you be better
for it personally? And when I say personally,
I'm talking about internally. Let me ask it this way, how has, or how is your
world view holding up? How is your
worldview holding up? You know what your worldview is. It's the way that you see
and interpret and explain how the world works. And when difficult time comes, sometimes our
foundations are rocked. And if your foundation, your
worldview has been rocked, you should pay
attention to that. Do you find yourself
asking questions that you've never before? If you're not a particularly
religious person, have you found yourself
praying for the first time in a long time? Maybe you went and found
a Bible for the first time in a long time. If you are a particularly
religious person, has your faith been rattled? Did you perhaps discover that
your faith was more fragile than you imagined? Did you find yourself
asking questions or do you find yourself
asking questions you've never asked before? Questions like where's God? How could God or I thought God? So here's my point, regardless of which side of
the faith aisle you're on, regardless of which side of
the faith aisle you're on, if this current season has
created tension on the inside, pay attention to that tension, it means you are on the verge
of learning something new or being reminded of something
that you've forgotten. It could lead somewhere good and it could certainly
lead somewhere better. My friend, Kate
Bowler said this, and I wasn't sure if
I'd heard her say it or actually had
read it in her book, but here's her quote and
I'll tell you how I found it just a second. Here's what Kate bowler wrote. She says this, "There's a
little prosperity gospel "in all of us." And the prosperity
gospel is this gospel that says basically good
things come to good people and bad things
come to bad people. That just kind of what
goes around, comes around and what comes
around, goes around. That you sort of earn
your way through life and that God favors
certain kinds of people because of their behavior. And in spite of the fact that you may reject
that kind of theology, I think she's right. There is a little bit of
that thinking in all of us, that God owes me, or if
you don't believe in God that life owes me
or karma owes me or somebody owes me because
I have been a good person and I have lived a good life. Now, Kate is actually
a professor at Duke
Divinity School. She's also a cancer survivor and she has written
from her pain and she's basically put her
life and her pain out there for the whole world
to see and to examine in an effort to help
people understand what it means to
navigate difficult times. In fact, she wrote a little book that Sandra and I both read. It's entitled, "Everything
Happens for a Reason." And I love the subtitle,
"And Other Lies I've Loved." So, as I mentioned, I
actually texted Kate to make sure I got
her quote right, and make sure it was
either something she said or something from her book. And as we texted back and forth and I told her what we
were gonna talk about, here's what she communicated
to me in her text. She wrote this, she said, "Each of us through the
accidental narcissism "of wanting to be happy." Don't you wanna be happy? I wanna be happy. And in wanting to
be happy, she says, we kind of find ourselves tripped up in this
accidental narcissism. What an insight. We get confused about
what we actually deserve. And then she wrote this, "The world cannot help
us know the difference "between who is righteous
and who is just plain lucky." Now here's my point, if this season has kind
of rocked your world in terms of your internal world, if this season has
rocked your worldview, if this season has
rocked your faith, pay attention to that tension, you may be on the verge
of learning something new, or you may be on the
verge of being reminded of something old. If current events have left you
wrestling with God questions and you're not a
religious person, and you just assumed you left
that wrestling ring years ago, but now you find yourself
wrestling with God questions, pay attention to that. And if you're a Christian, pay attention to
this tension as well, you may discover a
different kind of faith. You may discover a better faith. You may discover a
different version of faith. And perhaps in this season, you will finally give up your
faith in the nonexistent God who doesn't allow bad things
to happen to good people. And in this season, you
may come face to face with the God who allowed the
worst possible thing to happen to the best possible
person, his son. And he did that on your behalf. So the point is simply this
we're going to get through this. Things are going to
become more normal, but let's make sure
we are better for it. Let's make sure that we're
better for it financially. Let's make sure that we're
better for it relationally. And let's make sure that we
are better for it personally. Because, and you know this,
all this pain without any gain would certainly be a shame. So let's face and embrace
the lessons we've learned and let's for sure
face and embrace the perspective we've gained. Let's all decide,
and it begins today, let's all decide that we are
going to be better for it. Let's not do what C.S Lewis
referred to when he said, "Let's not behave like a puppy
when the hated bath is over." And this hated season
will come to an end. This hated bath will be over, but let's not race off to
the nearest flower bed. And let's certainly
not roll around in the nearest manure heap. Let's not forget
what we've learned. Let's not lose this perspective. And to help you do that,
I wanna make a suggestion. Now, some of you aren't gonna
like this and that's okay. We're gonna talk about
it for three weeks. Some of you are gonna love this. But because it's so
easy for us to forget, because it's so easy and because we're so
prone to just move on, I wanna encourage you as you think about what
you wanna carry forward from this season, I wanna encourage you to come
up with a way to remember. I want you to actually
create a reminder to find a physical object or perhaps make or
craft a physical object, or maybe it's something
you already own, and I want you to attach
a memory to this object, something that will
remind you of this season and what you wanna
carry forward from it. And I want you to take this
object, whatever it might be, and I want you to place it
somewhere prominent in your life so that you see it
and you're reminded. Maybe it will be simply
a reminder to slow down. Maybe it'll be a reminder
of the value of friendships that you've neglected. Maybe it will be a
reminder to kinda dig in and deal with the crack in
your relationships at home. Maybe a reminder to invest
in that son or that daughter that is not like you
and consequently, you've just had a hard
time connecting with. Perhaps it's a reminder of
who or what's most important. Perhaps it's simply a reminder of something we've all learned that we have far more in
common with people than not. But I want you to come
up with a reminder and place it somewhere
where you can be reminded and you have two or
three weeks to do this because we're gonna
talk about this for the next couple of weeks. Basically, what I
want us to all do is because of what we've learned and the perspective
we've gained, I want us to begin
writing a better story as we all move forward. Because as I said earlier,
eventually COVID-19, this whole season is simply
gonna be a story we tell. So this week two questions,
how can I be better for it? And what will help me remember? How can I be better for it? And what will help me remember? Normal or even the new normal
is right around the corner. I can't wait for
us to get there. I think we're all
looking forward to it. And I'll just be honest,
I'm even looking forward, I know you're not
gonna believe me, I'm actually looking forward
to us being together, and I'm actually
even looking forward to being interrupted
by crying babies and obnoxious ringtones. So I am looking forward to
normal, even the new normal. And we'll get there soon enough, but let's not miss
this unprecedented, and hopefully once in
a lifetime opportunity to learn everything we can
and to gain the perspective that will serve us
well in the future. Let's not merely settle
for getting through this. Let's decide to
be better for it. Now, next week, as I said, I'm gonna come back and
talk about your superpower. You actually have a superpower. You have an ability to ensure that everything
that comes your way makes you better. You can be better for it. I don't want you to miss
that so don't miss next week. Now as always, I
got a few questions,
