Articles: Marc Wayne
That's a pretty bold statement when I look at it outside of my head and voice speaking it. But the reality of this matter is true. Self Confidence and Self Esteem just aren't strong enough to support...well, really anything.
Self Confidence and Self Esteem don't exist because they require only self.
The problem with this is that each and every one of us has wrapped around our very existence thousands upon thousands of other people. Even our very birth required a relationship.
So how can we truly have confidence in ourselves when it took more than ourselves alone to produce us they way we know ourselves today? How can we truly esteem ourselves to any degree and that be all the strength we need when we have had so many people making so many challenging sacrifices to pour their lives into us?
With the many people that are now swirling around in your head like typhoon or hurricane...where have you ever found yourself in any given situation completely depending, relating, communicating, processing and operating by yourself?
Let us look at this more in depth.
We were created by and for relationship.
Well, to start from the beginning in order for you to even be here right now it took a relationship. In fact, it took thousands of relationships for the bloodline to get to you. So even before you were born there was a design plan in action to make sure you would be here. (Heck, if that does not get your attention on the issue of PURPOSE like a 3-point shot from downtown at the buzzer, I do not know what will.)
Next, your mother, father, or legal guardian raised you. Taught you how to talk, walk, and go to the bathroom "in the toilet". Then your kindergarten teacher taught you how turn your ABC's into words then into sentences. She even taught you that you aren't supposed to eat Elmer's glue. And for the next several years many teachers brought you writing, languages, American and World History, art, math and science, and our all time favorite...Phys. Ed. - or P.E.
Even during study hall or library hour without the direction of a living educator, your way of thinking was being changed and challenged by many people who put their thoughts to pen like Shakespeare, Poe, Clancy, Lewis, Marx, and Aristotle. The shelves of every library are filled to the brim with voices wanting to be heard and wanting to teach, and those we want to teach us. Self "centering" and learning cannot co-exist.
Then if that is not enough, let us look at the people we are serving.
You cannot be your own audience, student, or customer.
Not only were we created for relationship, but we were also created to serve. Tucked within that word "SERVICE" is the word "servant". Then if you go a little deeper, you will find the word "Obedience" or "OBEY".
YIKES!!!
Did I say that out loud? Yeah, I did. OBEY! That four letter word that is really, most likely at the top of the list four letter words. Who wants to obey? Who wants to obey leadership? Who wants somebody telling them what to do all the time? Well...get over it! You will be taking orders from people your whole life. From the top down, WE will always be obeying someone. Here is another exercise for you. Try to think of something that has not, is not, or will not be the result or outcome of you directly or indirectly obeying, providing, or granting a request, plea, command, or order of someone else. I have often heard young people (including myself when I was younger) make comments like, "When I getting older I'm gonna be in charge." or "When I move out, I'm gonna do what I want to do. I'm gonna make the rules."
No you're not. And I'll tell you why. Life has its own set of rules. Our society has its own rules too. Just about every business out there has a "mail room" (an entry level position)and guess what? That is where your first day of work will start. And even if you are some type of savant genius and start your own company where your are totally in charge, you will still have clients or customers.
IN ORDER FOR ANY BUSINESS TO SUCCEED, IT NEEDS CLIENTS AND CUSTOMERS. IN OTHER WORDS, IT NEEDS...YOU GUESSED IT, RELATIONSHIPS.
A business depends on relationships in order to survive. No, let me rephrase that. The life support or oxygen of a business are its customers and clients. In order for a business to keep "breathing" it must keep its clients happy and satisfied. It must also attract new clients. This is only done by serving their clients and being obedient to their needs and requests.
Men and Women, Husbands and Wives, please get a clue. Relationships are not canned goods you can go just pick up at your local grocery store. They are not neatly packaged deli meats or pre-made frozen dinners you can just throw in the microwave and 60 seconds later "Ding" they're ready for consumption.
RELATIONSHIPS ONLY COME IN SEED FORM.
Relationships have to be home grown. The seeds are pretty cheap. In fact, I think most great seeds are free. It's the farming of those seeds that costs a lot. After all, look how many people it took to grow you.
Greatness was in your seeds and so it is still in you now. Your fruit will bear it soon if not already but you must understand that you cannot farm yourself. You cannot raise yourself therefore you can have no confidence in self because self is but a seed waiting to be cultivated by another human being.
So what does all this mean?
We often assume that we deserve something. Somebody owes us something. Or, we think more highly of ourselves than we should, or even think we are better than the next person.
It could be that we have been trained to believe that we only have value when we are in first place, or the best, or at the top, or have the lead, or in the front line. Your value is not determined by your location, by your level, or by your lead. Your value was in your seeds and so it is in you now. You have been validated. Your evidence...is you.
So where does that leave us? Now that self confidence and self esteem are gone how and where do we get that strength and courage we need to press on?
SERVICE
Other people. See, everything you have ever needed to survive has come from an outside source. Even the courage and boldness you needed came from your friends and loved ones cheering you on or praying for you. There is nothing inside you that will keep you alive by yourself. However, everything you need to survive, everything you need to make it big, everything you need to have the greatest adventure-life you can IS in you. But its power comes on ONLY when you plug into someone else’s life. Only in relationship do you come alive and live life to its fullest. Only when you serve someone else what you want in return do you feel power and love. When you water someone else's seeds, you water your own seeds.
So to wrap it up...
When you are feeling down on yourself, defeated, angry that Suzie got the part and you did not, nobody likes you, or even deserted by your friends, a great thing you can do is go and love on someone. Go and serve somebody. Go and do a task for someone without expecting something in return. Go encourage somebody. Go and make a new friend. This is where your confidence lies, way out beyond the fence line of your personal zone; your comfort zone; your SELF zone.
With Much Love and Understanding
Marc Wayne
© 2008 Marc Wayne
GREENER GRASS
Ephesians 5:25
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it…
The grass is greener on the other side. This has been a well-known myth and yet we still seem to get caught up in its nets. The problem is once we get to the other side we find that it’s no different than our grass, but by then it’s too late to undo the damage of jumping the fence.
I was dropping off my kids to school one winter morning and the night before I was struggling with some thoughts and dreams. As I drove along I looked at the picture of my wife. A fine woman to look upon. Everyone who has seen my wife or a picture of her has called me a blessed man. And that I am. But even so, as a man there is still the battle of the nature of a man and a battle of a man and his past.
The bible compels us to be ravished with our wives. Our one wife. Ravished. I grabbed my Webster’s and looked up the word ravish:
Rav’ish 1. To seize and carry away by violence. 2. To overcome with emotion, esp. of joy or delight.
Ravish is by nature a violent word. So does that mean I am to be violently carried away by her love?
Proverbs 5:19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.
Proverbs is telling me that I should be in a continual state of being violently carried away, being overcome with emotion by her love.
How many of us men are in that state, allowing ourselves, making ourselves to be in that state of affectionate violation? This is not something that is up to her to perform but it is our responsibility to make her that way by the way we live and treat her. Do you remember when you first met? Something about her seemed to invade your space uninvited. Whether it was her smile, her laugh, her body, or the way she rode that Harley, she blew you away. It wasn’t so much anything special she did. It was you that resonated with who she was. You made her special in your world. There are beautiful women all over the world. God is the master of making beautiful people. A person who is attractive to you may not be viewed in the same way to someone else. So YOU are the determining factor in this mystery.
It’s like anything else in life. We are given a gift or talent or opportunity or a pitch (call it what you want), what we do with it, how we treat it, how we value it, or how we respond to it is completely up to us.
As I returned home from dropping off the kids I recalled a thought I had several months ago about my neighbors lawn. I looked at my lawn (well…my patch of various types of grass, weed, and "What do you call that thing?", better describes it) and then I looked at his. It was as opposite as night and day (Of course now with the dryness of winter his lawn was brown like mine. Except his was brown grass, mine was brown dirt!). In this case the grass was absolutely greener on the other side. The kind of rich green where you say, “I haven’t seen that color green before!” But to overtake my neighbor’s lawn would not solve my problem. My problem was with ME, not my lawn.
When our marriages seem to stop working, we tend to call it quits. An irreconcilable difference is what we call it. That’s a pile of horse dung! Excuse me, but there should be no reason why we can’t make our lawns look good. The reason why she has become a barren, cracked, and crotchety old hag is because of you mister! Wake up guys! God has placed us as the head of the house. He has placed us as His first leaders. He has commanded us to stretch out our arms upon Christ’s cross and LOVE-SERVE our wives and families. If you’re married to a bag, go find a mirror and look at your problem square in the face. Then the next time you see your neighbor working on his lawn him get off your lazy schlump and ask him what his secret is. I’ll bet that he’ll say something like this.
“Well neighbor…my yard is important to me. It’s a direct reflection of who I am. If my yard looks bad, I look bad. You see it’s not my lawn’s fault it can’t grow by itself. It needs my help. That means instead of sleeping in on Saturday morning, I get up, get out here, and find out what it needs. If I were growing weeds I wouldn’t have to do a thing. They can grow by themselves. But the weeds kill my grass, my flowers and plants too. Everything that’s beautiful to me, they come and kill. I can’t have that! Sometimes I will find that I have missed a weed and it will have grown to a good size and I have to dig up the earth pretty deep to get all the roots of it out. It is a lot of work friend but let me tell you this; it sure is great to have the greener grass on my side.”
We want to have these great marriages; these storybook marriages but we don’t want to do the work. We don’t want to make the commitment and sacrifices it takes. So what do we do? We leave our woman to go find another woman or better yet, we try to steal another man’s woman thinking she is what’s making the marriage look so awesome. That, class… is not it.
MEN!! Listen to me!!
When you get into a relationship with a woman, IT...IS...NOT...ABOUT...YOU!!
MARRIAGE IS NOT ABOUT YOU!
Part of marriage is about you changing yourself, so you can be a better support for your spouse! Work IN and ON your own wife. That doesn't mean try to change her; that means serve her. It's your job as a husband. And, duh...remember you LIKE this job. LISTEN TO HER! Let me say that again...
LISTEN TO HER!
A wife can only be as beautiful to you as you make her. That goes for any woman. If ever you see a woman who is hitting on all cylinders, I mean she’s sweet, pleasant to look at, got a head on her shoulders, a smile on her face, the whole nine; don’t try to take her, instead, go find her husband and ask him, “How did you do it.” Then be a good student and take notes. Because remember, no one woman is more beautiful than any other woman is. It is YOU who makes her the most beautiful woman in the world!
Love is free to the receiver, but Love C.O.S.T.S. the giver everything.
C Communication
O Obedience
S Service
T Time
S Sacrifice
© 2003, 2008 marcwayne 1.14.2003, 3.9/4.10.2008
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