1-10-10 Fundamentals: Modeling

Nanny Clip

 

How many of you have seen one of the Nanny shows? Yeah, she comes in and rescues people from these unbelievably, bizarre incompetence in raising their children. Now, what would it look like if a super nanny came into a house when the kids where old enough to be on their own. That’s not the way that super nanny’s usually work because they normally come into a home when the kid’s are young and impressionable and at a time when she can make a difference.

It would be very different if a super nanny came into a home where the kids were now young adults because then most of who they will be is pretty much formed in many ways. By the time a child is 13 years old, most of their beliefs and behaviors about life are already formed. Now all of us know that failure is not final. But if we do not start well in the arena of relationships, it becomes more and more difficult to develop positive relationships.

What’s undermining most of our relationships today, and is certainly undermining the relationship that parents are having with their children is because we are reactive in our relationships. We are often times reactive in our marriages and in our friendships and parents are most often reactive in their relationships with their kids.  Our relationships are often times poor or deeply challenged because we tend to be reactive in the way that we relate to one another.

 

We tend to wait for crisis – when things are going so bad that we cannot ignore them any longer – to act.

It’s like your car that’s been making a noise for some time now, but the car seemed to drive ok, so you just ignored it. Over the course of a year, you notice that you are having a hard time stopping your car, so you take it in and the mechanic. The mechanic, after checking the car over asks you if you’ve been hearing a high pitched screeching noise coming from your car and you tell him that you’ve heard that for about a year and he tells you that if you had brought your car to him then, it would have been $300 to put new brake pads on, but now, you don’t just need just break pads, you need pads, drums and rotors and he says it will cost you $1200 – 4 times what it would have cost you if you brought the car in last year.

In our relationships we tend to wait for crisis to act. We wait until things are going so bad that we cannot ignore them any longer. How many people have you heard that their marriage was at the very end, and then they say, “Ok I’ll go to counseling.”

Relationships are generally reactive and there are two problems with that way of thinking.

The first is that it’s generally it’s too late to relate with one another, from the beginning, the way the relationship should have been lived out. It’s just too late – that’s no longer an option. In other words, it’s too late to do it the easy way. Now we have to spend the time and money it takes to repair our relationship and the way we commonly relate to one another. It’s beyond the time when we should have started, but it’s better to start now, then to not start at all. And if you don’t have a crisis yet, don’t wait for the crisis to get started.

With my car I have regular scheduled maintenance. I don’t want to wait until the motor blows up, because that’s really costly. I want to do the regular maintenance to keep my cars engine in the best condition that it can be. It’s the same way with our relationships. We don’t want to be reactive. We want to be proactive.

The second problem is that being reactive in our relationships tends to put our relationships in the gambling category. It’s almost as if we are putting our relationships on the Roulette Wheel and spinning it and hoping that it lands red 7. Instead of doing what it takes from the very beginning, so that we can insure that the relationship has a chance of making it from the very, we tend to wait until the very end.

So if we’re going to overcome the desperation that is formed in so many of our relationships, certainly in our households and marriages, then we need to go away from the reactive means of doing relationships and begin to get proactive. In order to have a positive influence on another person’s life means that we have to live intentionally. We have to live with a plan.

Instead of waiting for the breakdown and then we start trying to repair the relationship, we, on a day-by-day basis, are going to make the proper investment so that the breakdown has less potential of happening. Two many of us do relationships like the story of Humpty Dumpty. We wait till he falls down and is all broken before we try and piece him back together again, instead of warning him of being on the wall in the first place.

Proactive involvement in relationships is all about the idea that we need to see every single moment in our relationship as a valuable moment. It’s kind of like the difference between doing preventative medicine and crisis medicine.

Most of us wait until we have a heart attack or a stroke before we begin to eat right and exercising. It’s amazing how many 60 year olds that I talk to who say, I exercise every day now. It’s because the crisis came and now they’re putting on the fix. The reason why they’re putting in the time in now is because they’re worried about the end of their life coming very soon if they don’t put the time in now.

Some of you have experienced broken relationships and you know that death would sometimes be better than the pain and loneliness that you face after such brokenness. Part of you dies when a relationship is broken. Death comes to the body when heart attacks and strokes come, but death happens to the soul when relationships are broken.

As a man after God’s own heart, I want to share with you truth about life and about relationships because there is someone called Satan, and he goes around like a prowling lion looking for a relationship to devour. A real lion might look to devour you physically, but this spiritual lion feasts on destroying love. He feasts on destroying your love because love is the one thing that makes you who God created you to be. In order to feel whole, in order for you to feel joy and peace, you and I need to be filled with the love of God and have loving, good relationships is the primary way that that happens in our lives. When those loving relationship are ripped away from us there is nothing worse.

Here’s what happens. Because we’re so busy, because we have so many things going on we often times get our priorities out of place, we don’t have the time or energy to be proactive and that’s one of the reasons why we’re so reactive.

If we are not proactive, our relationships will be more of a roulette style of relationship, and we will become reactive. Being proactive takes work. It takes diligence and intentionality. Leaving a positive mark on another person’s life requires proactive involvement. Even God said this in Deuteronomy chapter 6. He was talking about the family setting, the mom and the dad, passing values down to their children, leaving a positive mark, but this works in any context. It works in the marketplace, it works in friendships, it works in marriage, it works in any context. This is what God said through Moses:

Deuteronomy 6:6-9 (NIV)
These commandments (Love God and Love each other) that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. These are the values that will guide you in life. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

God says, If you are going to make a positive mark on the life of your children, then you’re going to have to pass the values that I’m giving you on to your children. God is saying, “See every moment as a teachable moment or as a moment that matters. Every moment, when you’re getting up, when you’re lying down, when your going out and when you’re coming in, when you ride in your car, when you come home these values are always important. There are no moments that don’t matter. Every moment in our lives is an investment in a relationship with someone . . . or not.

You can’t wait until crisis comes and then invest these values. God says that these values are so important that you need to bind them to your forehead and tie them as signs to your hands – kind of like my kids do, they write things that they need to remember on their hands – that’s what God is saying here. If you have trouble remembering important things, what do you do? Where do you write them down? Sometimes our family will write things with a dry erase markers on the mirror in our bathroom to remind us of something that we want to remember.

As parents, we need to set the example in the way we live, in the way we talk, in the way we act in every season of our lives. Make these the structure forms of our home. We have to be proactive if we’re going to leave a positive mark on another person’s life, but . . . generally we’re not. Generally we’re reactive people. We wait until it gets really bad and then we do something.

I want to encourage you, if you want to have the kind of relationships that you dream of having, start investing with your time and energy and intentionality. Start being proactive instead of reactive.

Here’s the application. If we want our lives to positively impact and build up our spouse and our marriage, if we want our lives to positively impact our children, if we want our lives to positively impact our friends and our co-workers, then we must become proactive in our relationships. We can’t wait for the problem or our relational collapse to try and fix the problem, because by then so much damage has been done that the odds are not in your favor and even if you do, it will take a very long time. Wouldn’t it be better to spend the time and energy on the front end by being proactive instead of on the back side being reactive?

So here is the deal, what do we need in order to be proactive in our relationships? What does that look like? Well, the good news is that God’s taught us how to do relationships.

The first way that you and I can be proactively involved in the relationships that we have, is that we have to choose to be a positive example. I chose in every season of life, in every circumstance in life, in every trial in life, to see the importance of that moment in my relationships, and I choose to be a positive pattern setter. And you must know that you have absolutely no option as to whether or not you will be an example. By what you say and what you do, you are setting the patterns for the people’s lives around you. You are a model for life’s behavior for everyone that loves you and whom you love.

The question is not whether you will be an example or a model. The question is what kind of an example or a model will you be? If we are reactive in our relationships, then we are just responding to the moment, and all of us know that if we just wait and respond in the moment that sometimes we respond well and other times we will not.

This is what Jesus said about modeling for other people. He said, I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. John 13:15 (NIV)

Jesus is saying, “You follow my example and you’re going to do great!” How many of you would like to stand up here and say to everyone else, follow me, you’re life is going to be great?” Jesus understood every moment of his life that he was setting the pattern for how we are to live. He chose to be a positive example.

He was in the garden getting ready to be nailed to a cross and he still said, “Father, I want to do your will, not mine. I have some ideas about how I’d like this to go, but they don’t line up with where you want them to go, but Father, not my will, but yours be done.” No matter what comes into our lives, we are called to be a pattern for those around us. We are called to do God’s will and to follow God’s way, because he will always lead us toward blessings in our lives. It didn’t look like the cross was a blessing when he was hanging on the cross, but 3 days later, God did the impossible – Jesus was glorified and was risen from the dead. Jesus sacrifice did remarkable good even though it didn’t look like a good idea.

Even when Jesus was nailed to that awful cross and the lifeblood was draining out of him, he said, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Even in his last breaths, Jesus was a model and a positive example of how we are called to live.

Paul the Apostle said in 1 Corinthians 11:1 said Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

Paul Got it! He understood that he was going to be an example and he decided that instead of being reactive that he was going to be proactive, so that he could leave a positive impact on those people in his life whom he had influence over, and he did it by saying “I will be a positive example.”

Now, the truth is, we’re going to be an example, and what we do will influence those who are dear to us.

Stephen Covey the author of a large number of well-known books wrote the following:

Project

If a child lives with criticism, he or she learns to condemn.

If a child lives with hostility, then he or she learns to fight

If a child lives with acceptance, he or she learns to love.

If a child lives with an apprehensive example, then he or she learns to fear in life.

If a child lives with recognition in his or her life, then the child learns to live with goals

If a child lives with pity, then she learns to be sorry for herself and play the role of a victim

If a child lives with approval, then he learns to like himself

If a child lives with jealousy then he or she will learn to feel guilty

If a child lives with friendliness then he or she will learn that the world is a nice place.

If a child lives with security, then he or she learns to have confidence in himself and others

You and I are modeling what will form others people’s patterns for life. What we say and do and how we act will invariably form and shape the people around us. God is a great Creator and we were made in his image. God gave us the ability to create. Our ability to create is just a shadow of what God can create, but none-the-less we create by what we do and by what we say. We either create goodness as God did, or we create evil as many have done in our past.

You and I cannot be reactive with life – just doing whatever we feel like from moment to moment and then dealing with things when they crash and burn is not a good way to do life. We are called to be proactive in life because we are modeling life for those around us and the way we live our lives impacts all the people around us.

The question is “Have you chosen to be a positive example or are you just living a reactive life?” The result of being a positive example regardless of the season or circumstance of life, is this, it provides a legacy. Jesus was able to say, Follow the legacy that I am leaving you, follow the footprints that I’m leaving you and you won’t go wrong. Paul was able to say follow the footprints that I leave as I follow Christ’s footprints and you won’t go wrong.

Moms and Dads should be able to say, “I’m leaving footprints for you to follow”, and the only way you can do that is if you set your heart on becoming a positive example for your kids.

God said, These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

In order to become people who leave a legacy to those around us we have to choose to be proactive in the way we live our lives, and s if we are going to lead proactive lives, then we must choose to be helpful and encouraging guides. We have to decide that we are going to help others regardless of the season, encourage others regardless of the season, and help to guide others in life because of their relationship with us. That should be the goal of all our relationships, but it will only happen if we get up every morning thinking, how can I make a difference in the people’s lives around me. I have to be proactive, not reactive.

Look at how the Bible says it: Hear, my child, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many.  I have taught you the way of wisdom; I have led you in the paths of uprightness. Proverbs 4:10-11 (NRSV)  

I am a helpful and encouraging guide.

Fathers, (mothers) do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Ephes. 6:4 (NIV)

Don’t be reactive in the moment. Don’t frustrate them and confuse them, but rather be helpful and encouraging guides as you raise them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Now, for some of us, we didn’t have parents who left us a positive legacy. In fact, some of us have parents that not only didn’t leave us a positive legacy, they left us a negative one. They probably did the best they could with what they were given, so I don’t want to judge them for what they gave us, but the fact is we may not have parents or a mother figure or a father figure where we can say, I’m going to follow in their footprints and If I do, I can’t go wrong, because we can see where their footprints lead and it’s not where we want to go. Sometimes we can go in completely the opposite direction of our parents.

I ran into one woman that had domineering parents. They were controlling and, when drunk abusive, and so she chose to never spank or force her will on her daughter. That’s reactive parenting and it basically destroyed her daughter’s life. Proactive relationships are not moved by feelings but by God.

So what do we do? How do we lead our children? How do we know what to do? I’m glad you asked, because those of us who have committed our lives to Jesus Christ and received the forgiveness of sins, literally have the Spirit of God within us. We are not God, but rather have the presence of God in our lives. Listen to what John 14:16 (NRSV) says:

But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

The Holy Spirit, the Counselor, teaches us how to do relationships, but we have to seek him, we have to talk with him and like any relationship, we are called to thank him for all the goodness we see all around us, and not treat him like a vending machine that you only put your two cents in when you want something from him. Our relationship with God can’t be reactive and only go to him when things are going wrong in our lives. We are called to be proactive in our relationship with God, which means that we are to diligently sent out to know God, to understand him, and to love him with all that we are.

Here’s the great thing about Jesus. Jesus came into this world to be our guide, to be our model and so the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are very important books because we can learn a lot about who we were created to be. Jesus’ all-important words that still ring true in our lives today are “Come, Follow me.” He is our guide. He is our model. And when we seek to follow him and  love him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, then he gives us the gift of his Spirit to train us and guide us in how to live and how to train our children and how to live our lives in a way that blesses us and those around us and in a way that honors him.

Our relationships can be proactive or reactive. Reactive means you don’t have a plan or a destination. To be reactive means that you don’t have a goal or a direction, you’re just wandering and, quite frankly that’s dangerous.

To be proactive means that you have your eyes on Jesus and you’re following him as closely as you can because you know where he’s going – you know what his plan is and you know what the destination is . . . and that is Heaven on Earth.