Breathing Room • Part 4┃"Choosing to Cheat"

hi I'm Andy Stanley did you know that in your lifetime you'll only have one or two unique roles so why trade what is unique to you for something somebody else can do stick around we'll talk about [Music] so we've been talking about how to create space in our schedule how to create space financially and today we're going to talk about how to create space relationally because here's the problem the problem is in our effort to get the most out of life we continue to squeeze one thing after another after another and eventually and trying to squeeze that last thing and that happens seventeen years ago we launched North Point at that stage in my life we had two kids and diapers and Sandra was pregnant with our third child and for those of you who've ever launched an organization or begun something that you're excited about it is extraordinarily time consuming one of the things that we did is we read a book together our leadership team by Michael Gerber called the e-myth or the e-myth revisited some of you've read the book - great book and one of the things he recommends you do as an organization is that you create an organizational chart that represents how large you want your organization to ultimately be and we wanted to create a church that was so big that would actually impact an entire community or perhaps an entire city so the six of us sat down and we created this giant organizational chart and then he said now you put everybody somebody has to put their initials in every single box in the organization so that everybody will know what they have to do and then your work your way out of those boxes which is a great strategy except at the end of the exercise we all had our name in about 20 or 30 boxes which meant there was a lot to do but we were so excited meanwhile I got two kids kind of Wilding around as toddlers and a pregnant wife who I loved dearly and without much time going by it suddenly dawned on me that there just wasn't gonna be enough time there just wasn't at a time I love my work I love my family but there just wasn't enough time if I stayed at work until everything got done I wouldn't I would never be home if I stayed at home until everybody got their love tanks full and every all my kids had their I had their undivided attention and you know Sandra had enough conversation time with me I probably wouldn't ever go to work and then during this time as we were kind of grappling with all this stuff we had our third child and then we speed it up you know our oldest child's potty training I won't tell you about that in case you meet him someday and then now we had one that was barely potty-train now we had to and diapers and life was really intense at home and some of you who are in that stage right now or can remember that stage v that we kind of try to blank it out you can remember you remember that and there just wasn't time so when I'm at home I'm thinking about work when I'm at work I'm thinking about home and then to make matters worse I just wasn't going to work I was building the church you know I was doing God's will you know I was doing this thing that I felt called to do and impassioned about there was so much excitement and things were starting to grow but things were very very busy now for those of you who have met my wife the few of you she is an extraordinarily capable person in fact years ago we took a leadership test and she scored way higher than me in leadership she is organized I mean she is efficient I mean she is the most get it done organized person she has so much capacity and so at this very very you know stressful time of our lives she was just taking on more and more of the responsibilities at home and her heart was you go build that church and I'm gonna cover the thing things at home and I'm like you covered things at home and I'm gonna go build the church but there was a growing tension and being in ministry I knew the end of that story and the end of that story if you didn't do something kind of drastic the end of the story looked kind of like this a big mess and I'd seen it happen not only lives of men and women who are in business but I've seen it specifically in the lives of men and women who were preachers and their children because in preachers world you have this idea that you're doing God's will and so you pray a prayer that looks kind of like this Lord take care of things at home while I do your work and build the church and it seems so glorious and it seems so glamorous and it seems so you know right and it seems so religious and it seems so spiritual and it just seems like God would answer that prayer that God's gonna cover the bases and fill in the gaps at home while I go do his work and build the church but I had talked to enough preachers and met enough preachers kids whose lives were a complete mess who walked away from the church and hated the church because they felt like their dad was married to the church to know that something had to give in our life and the other thing was this after months and months and months and you know I'm you know you just sort of feel that tension and you have those hard conversations and you're kind of walking on eggshells and you just and as a we just don't know what to do and again I'm at home they gonna work were thinking at home so finally finally this culminated in one of the most important conversations we've ever had in our marriage and I think this conversation actually resulted in the best leadership decision I've ever made and in the conversation I asked a question that I think she was afraid to answer and I think one of the reasons we hadn't actually gotten the conversation to this level is because I didn't think she'd wanted she would want to tell me the truth because she's trying to be a trooper and carry her weight and I don't want to be complaining and you're doing God's will and you know I'm you know I want to be able to carry the load so finally I asked her this question I said what does ID look like what's this ID look like in other words don't be afraid to tell me I'm not I'm not gonna think you're a whiner or a complainer that you're weak or that you're not a good mom or that you're not a good wife just tell me in an ideal world what would my schedule look like in an ideal world how would this work I don't know if I can do it I don't know if it's realistic but I at least need to know so that we don't continue to kind of do this dance around something that you're thinking and I'm thinking and we're both trying to do our part because it was just it just wasn't comfortable it just wasn't going in a good direction now I'm gonna tell you what her answer isn't just a minute but I want to talk a little bit about this tension when we hand to our husband or wife our significant other who it is whenever we hand to our children a responsibility they are not equipped to carry it's like handing them a big rock it's like honey I got to go to work and I'm gonna be gone a long time and I'm gonna be traveling more than normal and I need you to carry a responsibility that I know belongs to me but I need you to hold this for a while while I do something else somewhere else and we all know in life there are times there are days there are weeks there might even be a short season where we have to say to our kids kids mom or dad has to be gone mom or dad has to work a little bit harder mom and dad's gonna miss a weekend or to mom and dad's gonna miss a ballgame or two and so we hand our spouse or we hand you know our kids load and this load represents a responsibility we should carry that we're expecting them to carry and you know what happens when we hand it to him they always accept it because after all I want to be a good husband while you work I want to be a good wife you know while you travel I want to be a good son I want to be a good daughter I know that Daddy works hard I know that mommy works hard so yeah dad I know you're not gonna be here for the ball game I know you're gonna miss that recital but I understand that I I can carry that load yeah I'm gonna miss you yeah I wish you were there but I can carry that load and so they carry that load the problem comes is when we leave them with that load and we never come and take it out of their hands and time goes by and time goes by and time goes by and they begin slowly to wear out and there's a tension and there's problems and there's stuff going on we don't completely understand what it is I if you're here's how you know that you've handed that load off to somebody in your family when you're constantly repeating promises to do better daddy's gonna do better mommy's gonna do better honey I promise honey I promise honey I promise I'm gonna do better I know you're right and they're crying and you're crying and you know you're wrong and you know you've done it again and you know you came home late again and you know you over scheduled again and you know that you prioritize somebody else over them again and you know you did it wrong and you promise and you promise and you promise and nothing changes and you know how we how we justify this every once in a while we show up and we say how's the rock you doing okay with the rock I know I've left you with that rock you're doing okay go go go go you can do it you can do it we cheer mom we think we've cheered him on it and here's some flowers okay here's some flowers you know hey I bought you a box of golf balls how's it going you just you holding that rock and then we go back off to whatever it is that we're doing the other way that you know you've handed it off is this chronically absent from important events you miss another ball game another recital you miss another birthday all know I'm going to be gone over our anniversary again the third way is you keep pointing to the future to make up for the past it's gonna get better let's go next year next summer next spring next spring break next Christmas next Thanksgiving next birthday next time next I know I missed it this time I know I know I know but next time next time next time when it's qur'anic when it's repeated when they just don't seem to change when you're having the same conversations about the same things over and over and over you have handed someone in your family a burden they were not meant to carry for very long and then eventually eventually their mental willingness to carry your load is overcome by emotional and in some cases physical exhaustion and they drop that rock and it's so interesting when the rock drive when the rock drops in a family for men we look at the immediate event and say what happened all I said was past the ketchup and she just broke into a puddle of tears and ran out of the room what is that all I said was I'm gonna be five minutes late she hangs up the phone I get home she's not even there and I haven't heard from her in three days you know what happened all I said was honey I might miss that you know I might not get there till the end of the recital and I mean she was locked her room and the music's loud as she's not talking to me and you're not have what what all I said was all I did all I said was all I did well we don't understand it was one more coat hanger and a full closet and it was the last one and somebody dropped the rock when the rock rock drops grades plummets sometimes when the rock drops intimacy evaporates when the rock drops you tell your husband look I I've got a trip and I this took me by surprise as well and instead of seeing sorrow in his eyes you think you might have just read I'm glad you're going on another trip it's better when you're not around now if you haven't been there mmm someday you might be there and there's nothing worse than a family than when the rock drops because I hate to tell you this even though I should bring you the good sometimes when it drops there is irreparable damage sometimes it signals the end of a relationship sometimes even though most of the pieces can put be put back together it's a little bit like Humpty Dumpty you can't get them all quite back together and then sometimes it takes seasons and then sometimes years to bring about the trust that was lost when you ask someone to carry a load that you were intended to carry but because you had something else to do you left it with them a little bit too long now I understand why this happens and part of the reason this happens is this we love progress and in the marketplace and in the industry where you work or the world that I work in we love progress and when I go to work I can measure progress can't you when I come home I can't measure progress there's no progress I'm just home if I stay at work for two extra hours I get stuff done and I could put a check in a box and I can make a call and I can tell somebody I finished something when I go home I'm just home like most of you I can't make any extra money at home I have to be at work at home there aren't any awards celebrations I don't get I've never gotten a trophy at home of you I've never gotten a plaque at home I haven't had everybody sit around and cheer when I walked in and bring me up and hand me something there are no financial bonuses connected with being at home you're just home so I understand this and I think this is the thumbprint of God on you I think God who loves progress progress in you and progress in the world and think of all that God has created this is the thumbprint of God this isn't a bad thing but when it gets out of control when your desire and your quest for progress whether it's growing something building something making more money creating a name for yourself whatever it might be all of which are good things when those things begin to compete with the fundamental things with the essential things and when you begin to cheat what is most important for the sake of something that's secondary then there is a problem so with all that as a backdrop in knowing all of that having seen that in the lives of so many families Sandra and I sit and I say what what's what's ideal what does ideal look like and and don't be afraid to tell me and she said well at four o'clock I'm done I'm just done I don't have any energy I got to start thinking about dinner with the three kids I'm just by four o'clock no matter how disciplined I've been and how you know all the things I try to do to pace myself at from four o'clock the six o'clock or 4:30 to 6:30 those are the worst two hours of the day and Auntie those that's when you show up you show up at six o'clock or 6:30 and I'm done done done and I try so hard and I just don't have it in me we had a great conversation I said so what's ideal she said could you come home at 4:00 and I was so glad she told me and I she just didn't want to tell me because she knew what a burden that would be and so I made a decision it was one of the toughest decisions I've ever made as a leader certainly as a pastor but I think it's one of the best leadership decisions I ever made and as difficult as it may have sounded there was part of this that made it kind of easy and part of it is what I tell you every single week week after we have a week I really believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God and that he died for our sins and that he actually rose from the dead and I believe there were people who saw it and I believe there were people who took his teaching and spread it around and many of them wrote parts of what we would call the New Testament which means we need to take the New Testament seriously and in the New Testament Peter who hung around with Jesus a lot and Paul who spent a lot of times with his followers said some very specific things about marriage and I knew that for the rest of my life beginning 17 years ago and even before I would stand up in front of people and say here's what the New Testament says about how you're to treat each other here's what the New Testament says about marriage and I taught it and I believed it and suddenly there was a brand new level of application that had come my way because I knew that the New Testament taught this check this out we've looked at these verses before Paul wrote this submit to one another out of reverence for Christ submit to one another out of reverence for Christ and this is the introduction to something he's about to say to me as a husband submit to one another out of reverence for Christ submit means I place myself under submit means I'm gonna put your deal above my deal submit says Sandra whatever you want I'm gonna try to do my very best to make sure you have what you want and what you need you tell me what time I'm gonna try to figure it out I have never been called as a man to submit myself to my career even if my career is the local church and therein is the tension I've never been asked to submit myself to my desire to create a name for myself I've never been asked to submit myself to the drive to make a lot of money or to build a big organization but my Heavenly Father through those who knew his son so well so I said I'm to submit myself to a person and then he goes right to the heart of the issue he says husbands here's what it looks like to submit yourself to one another and to your wife you love your wife as Christ loved the church and then in case we didn't know exactly what he was talking about he said and you give yourself up as he gave himself up for her as Christ gave himself up for the church husbands to love your wives how as Christ loved the church not as you think she deserves to be loved husband's you love your wife as Christ loved the church and what do we have to do well you follow Christ's example and you give yourself up for her you give up your ambition for her you submit your desire for progress and all those good things that God has put in your heart to do for the sake of her so in that moment in that conversation because I know these things I've taught these things I believe these things I really do think there there there's traction and leverage to be had and these kinds of principles I knew that I really didn't have any choice but to figure out a way to create breathing room at our marriage by placing Sandra ahead of my career my job which meant you the local church now I'll tell you what made it difficult as much as I believe that as much as I loved her and I didn't even have to do this out of reverence for Christ it wasn't like well I don't really like Sandra but I really like Christ okay so I'm gonna submit myself to her for this AI you know some of you may be in a marriage you may just have to do it out of reverence for Christ because you've lost reverence for each other and you know something that's a good thing to do as well because you can regain reverence for each other when you begin to treat each other reverently I mean it works the other way as well but fortunately we hadn't gotten to this things were teetering okay things needed a little propping up but there hadn't been a disaster and so I still loved my wife and I thought okay if this is what it looks like to submit myself to you I'm gonna figure this out but I'll tell you what the obstacle was the obstacle was what we talked about the first week in this series and if you didn't watch the first one he needs to go back and watch the first one because we said the thing that wars against breathing room in our lives financially and in our schedule more than anything else it's not discipline even though sometimes it can be a discipline problem it's not the amount of money although obviously there are financial constraints we talked about that last week the issue for most of us when it comes to really creating breathing room is this word right here fear sphere it's fear but what if I don't and what if I don't measure out and what if I don't show up and I'm afraid of what people might think and I'm afraid of how people might interpret that I'm afraid of how that's gonna come across and I'm afraid that people will read into that and I'm afraid that they'll think I'm lazy I'm afraid they'll think I'm not bought in I'm afraid I'm afraid I'm afraid and none of us want to admit we're afraid but what drives the breathing room right out of our lives sometimes is fear and in my case I was thinking how am I gonna go to these five employees that are working themselves silly and say hey I'm gonna leave every day at 4:00 good luck see ya I'll be the first to go follow me and what happens when the people that church find out about is what happens when I could go into all these meetings and go into all these groups and when I tell people I can't be there I can't be there I can't be there I can't be there well when can you come I can't ever come because I'm not doing anything at night anymore I'm gonna have our elders meeting once a month in our stewardship team meeting once a month but I'm not gonna go to all these other things when can you come I can't ever ever come til our kids are grown that's when I can come when our kids are gone I'm come to your house it was so difficult and so I remember one afternoon I driving home I pulled off in the side street before I went home I was just it was just you know right in the midst of this and I kind of made a deal with God and I don't recommend you make deals with God I don't don't model this this is I just didn't know what else to do because there was just so much pressure and just things to get done so I said God and if this sounds so silly now 17 years later I said God a to what I can only give you 45 hours a week I mean that we know that it to get I mean you know I and I'm not gonna travel and you need to know for the first ten years of the life of our church I got asked to do so many things and travel but I couldn't even get everything done here and so all the traveling was a no just I don't travel it would have been more money because people pay me to speak I don't know why but they do and so I thought it was just saying stuff but I said I'm not doing that but God I've only got about 45 hours so God will you build as big and is wonderful and is awesome a church as you can on my forty five hours a week because you and I both know that's all I got and I will be satisfied with whatever you place and those 45 hour hands I just had to settle that once and for all on my way home that day so I began to pray a different kind of Prayer and I have been saying this and teaching this and I've talked to enough men and women and every kind of business and every kind of industry to know that there is an application even though you think there is not so I changed my prayer remember this prayer that said Lord take care of things at home while I do your work and build the church I turned it around and I began to pray this Lord take care of things at work while I take care of things at home god I do you thank God that you can possibly take care of things at work are you able to do that Oh God who created economy Oh God who created mankind Oh God who's the mission it knows everything about the past the present future do you think you can handle things at work while I go home and take care of things at home and the answer is of course he can here's the other thing I stumbled onto during this season of life because there was so much learning I've taken you know about eight or nine months and condensed it down into just a few minutes for you it dawned on me during those days with my kids and when they were so young and Sandra and the church was young and all the stuff it dawned on me that I really only have two unique roles in my entire life for my whole life no matter how long I live I only really have a couple of unique roles one is first husband to Sandra and second is father to my kids that's it anything I anything else I do somebody else can do and newsflash somebody else will do so here's what I would say to you don't trade just don't make that trade don't trade what's unique for you you need to you for something somebody else will do it even rhyme because I wanted you to help you remember this okay don't trade what's unique to you for something somebody else will do that's a bad bad trait and I can promise you this you're gonna want to go back and relive that you're gonna want to go back and redo that and the only way to have those kinds of relationships is to create breathing room because relationships thrive where there is space between your current performance and your ultimate ability your limits now here's the thing and I learned this from my dad and and I'm so grateful for this I mean I must have heard this a thousand times growing up and again all of this was sort of the context I think for this that thing that Sandra and I wrestled through and that's this I knew that then even 17 years ago I knew then I didn't want to look back and wonder what would of God what you know I wonder what God would have done if I had trusted him I wonder what God would have done if I'd not allow fear to control I wonder imagine this I wonder what would have happened if I'd taken seriously what Jesus said don't worry about tomorrow don't worry about what you're gonna eat don't worry about what you're going to wear your Heavenly Father knows what you need before you ask I wonder what it would look like to actually live as if God had that much detailed interest in knowledge of my life what would it look like to not worry about tomorrow and to do what I know God wants me to do while I trust him to do what he's promised to do what would that look like and I didn't want to look back and wonder I wonder what kind of thing God could have done in our church if I had simply done what I was supposed to do at home and pray that he'd fill the gaps at work instead of me doing everything at work and hoping he filled the gaps at home and here's the thing and I said this in so many different ways and I mean this with all my heart for all of you here and those of you who are watching even for the first time I don't want you to look back and wonder either I don't want you to miss this stage or to get to this seat into this season of your life and look back and wonder I wonder what God might have done if I had trusted him with in my 20s if I had trusted him with my early years of marriage if I had trusted him with my dating life if I had trusted him with my morality if I had trusted me with my sexuality if I had trusted him financially if I had trusted him with my schedule I wonder if what God might have done with me and through me if I had said no to that opportunity and no to that move and no to that transfer and no to more traveling what if I had said no in order to do what I know God wants me to do my unique roles I wonder if God would have blessed that I wonder if God would have done something unique I wonder what God might have done through me I wonder what story I'd be able to tell my kids and grandkids now if I had trusted him in those moments where somebody was gonna get cheated and I chosen instead to cheat my career instead of cheating my family I mean there are enough regrets in life that we create that are unavoidable right there are enough regrets in life that are unavoidable because other people create them but while I look back on this season and wonder of what God might have done if you had trusted him with everything if you had taken seriously you're ready for this the most repeated command and all the Bible Old Testament in the most repeated and and all the Bible over and over and over and over and over fear not fear not fear not that's the only way to move forward by faith that's the only way to create breathing room it's the only way to create the space you need for the relationships that are most important to you to thrive and if you haven't figured this out already let me go and say it for you you will never be happier than your relationships no matter how much money you have no matter who knows your name you will never be happier than your relationships and you will never be happier than the relationships that you have with those who are most precious to you why would you trade what is unique to you for something somebody else is eventually going [Music] you

Channel: Your Move with Andy Stanley

Views: 19,650

Keywords: Andy Stanley, Your Move with Andy Stanley, Your Move, better decisions, fewer regrets, need more time, control my life, my life is a mess, out of control, life, stress, anxiety, limits, capacity, Motivational, People, fix your life, FOMO, stressed out, stress relief, faith, anxious, fear of future, breathing room, debt, discipline, choosing to cheat, work life balance, family, marriage

Id: qTr5w4PokAU

Length: 28min 1sec (1681 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 02 2018