Five thousand dollars for six days or seven grand,
if you want the Diamond plan. And that’s
before you’ve paid for your travel and hotel.
That’s what you’ll need to pay to have your Date with Destiny. For me, it would be more like a Date with
Debt. But every year, 2500 people fork
over that money to Life Coach Tony Robbins.
Why? Tony tells them that in
those six days their life will change.
Well, I don’t have 5 thousand lying around, but I do
have Netflix. So I watched a film that
chronicles those days in Boca. And I
did learn a few things. Tony Robbins
cusses a lot. And he has a gorgeous
oceanfront home in Palm Beach. If you
are taking in 15 million dollars in six days, that buys some nice things.
But more than that, I learned this. People pay that
money because they desperately want to change. And they’re willing to take a five thousand
dollar flyer to get it. And whether you
like Tony Robbins or not Tony sincerely wants them to change. For six days and nights, he pours everything
he has into helping that to happen.
After all, the people in that ballroom in Boca look
great. They seem to have it all
together. But then you hear the stories,
some of them heartbreakingly awful, and you get it. A lot of these people are barely holding on,
even to life. And they know. Something has to change. Something has to change inside them.
And let’s be honest, who doesn’t have something in
their life they want to change. And I’m
not talking an outward circumstance. I’m
talking inside where nobody sees but you.
But what you see, you don’t like.
What you see, you don’t want.
Yet, you wonder. How does it go
away? How do I become free? How
do I really change?
In the words of this painful and heartfelt prayer,
God shows the way. Let’s hear what God
has to say.
Daniel 9:1-19
Everyone at some level has something, something they
want to change. It may be a habit. It may be a way of thinking. It may be a fear that holds you back, a wound
that won’t heal; a belief that limits you.
But how does that change happen?
In this prayer of Daniel’s, we see how change happens. It happens when humility and hope come
together. It happens when you humbly face
the source of your pain, but even more, experience the hope that only God can
bring. It
happens when instead of looking out, you look in, when instead of looking down,
you look up.
But reading this prayer, you can wonder. How could these words bring about
change? They seem, well, so
depressing. But the words don’t so much
bring the change. They point to the change that is already happening. What Daniel is experiencing in this prayer,
in his life, the Bible calls repentance.
And too often what this word means gets obscured by misperceptions that
it simply means a type of remorse. You
did something wrong, and now you feel bad about it, really bad. But anyone who has experienced that sort of
feeling knows that it rarely leads to change.
Often, it leaves you stuck in the same bad place where you already were.
But repentance actually means change.
The Greek word that the New Testament writers use literally means a
change of mind, a transformation in the way you think. And
in Daniel’s words, that is what we are seeing.
We are seeing evidence of a transformation of mind and heart that has
literally changed Daniel.
And that change does
begin with sadness and grief, but a sadness and grief that instead of
paralyzing you, frees you. Why? It
actually connects you to the truth that you need to see. The preacher Bill Coffin put it this way. Honesty does not come painlessly; As Jesus said, “The truth will make you free.”, but, Coffin said, first it makes you
miserable! So how does the misery
Daniel feels lead to freedom?
It happens first in
where Daniel looks. Years ago, I heard
the leadership guru Jim Collins share a saying that’s stuck with me. Collins said that good leaders when
something goes well, they look out the window.
They celebrate those who helped make the good thing happen. But when things go bad, good leaders look in
the mirror. Where did I go wrong? In contrast, poor leaders did the
opposite. When things go well, they look
in the mirror (Yea, look at me!), but if something goes bad, they go to the
window. They look for someone to
blame. And Collins’ words don’t simply work for
leaders, they work for everyone.
And they are working
here in Daniel’s life. It would have
been simple for Daniel to blame the Babylonians for the destruction of
Jerusalem. After all, it was the
Babylonians that destroyed it. But
Daniel knows that the weakness that led to that destruction began within. It began when the nation lost its way, when
they started putting their belief in power, success, wealth, things that didn’t
ultimately matter instead of the God who did. And those false beliefs planted seeds
that led to their demise. That’s the
truth he needs to see.
And only in seeing that
truth, in looking in the mirror at the failings of himself and his nation, can
Daniel find the freedom that leads to change, to the return from exile for
which Daniel yearns. After all, he can’t
do anything about the Babylonians.
Those leaders have already gone, conquered by the Medes and the
Persians, that new leader to which these first verses refer.
But more than that, if
the problem began in the mirror, if the problem began in Daniel and his nation,
then it can end there too. He realizes
that the way to change lies within them, within what they decide to do. Only
with the humility that comes with looking in the mirror, do you see that.
Many years ago, I went
to a sort of Tony Robbins type experience.
And one of the exercises that the leader did with us kind of rocked my
world. He asked each of us in the room
to remember a time when we felt utterly powerless and alone. I didn’t have to struggle for that
memory. I knew it right away.
When I was in my early
teens, I got bullied pretty badly. A
group of kids my age would gang up on me, and do things that well, terrified
me. I’ll never forget how scared I felt
when they thought it would be fun to dangle me by my feet from an open window.
But the leader asked us
to remember those times, and ask ourselves honestly. Were you really powerless? Were there things you could have done? In my case, he asked me. Did you ever talk to your parents about
it? Did you ever share the issue with a
teacher? Did you ever reach out to
anyone for help? I realized. I had done none of those things. I did have power in that situation. I simply had not taken it. Now as we did that exercise, he reminded us do
so without judgment. This wasn’t about
beating yourself up. This was simply
about reframing the reality of your situation.
This was about, instead of
looking out the window, to start looking into the mirror.
And when I did, I
realized that even there I had more power than I realized. But do
you realize what power I had? I had the
power to ask for help, to look to a power larger than myself. So why didn’t I?
To be honest, I didn’t
reach out because of pride. I didn’t want to acknowledge that I couldn’t deal
with that situation on my own. And in
our lives, often what prevents change begins there. We fight the battle alone. Not because we need to, but because we don’t
want to admit that we need help, that we can’t handle it on our own. So we
suck it up or we minimize the problem or maybe even deny it’s there. We do whatever it takes to avoid facing the
fact that what we face is bigger than us.
But here’s a reality of
life. Bringing significant change often only
happens when we bring someone in to help. It’s why people hire trainers or go to Weight
Watchers or see therapists and the list could go on. But in life, you will face some changes that
require far more than that.
It’s why in 12 step
programs, after you admit that you have a problem that is making your life
insane, the very next step you take is face the truth that this problem you
can’t handle alone. And for this
problem, other people can help but they’re not enough. You need a power greater than yourself,
greater than others, to restore your life to sanity. And as millions of recovering alcoholics
and addicts can attest, when you reach out beyond yourself, that help
comes. Healing comes. Change comes.
At times at night, our
son Patrick has a bad dream. And when
he wakes up, what does he do? He cries
out. And what do we do? We come running. We come to comfort, to assure him that he is
not alone. We come to make it better. Yet
how often the wisdom that my child exhibits, we fail to practice. When change needs to happen, when problems
hit that are too big for you, do you cry out for help? Or do you hold your pain in rather than bring
it someone, much less the only One who can truly heal it, who can bring the ultimate
change you need?
But Daniel doesn’t go
that route. He cries out to God, to the
only One who can bring the change he needs.
But why would God help? After all, even though Daniel and his nation
have suffered in exile for 70 years, they still haven’t gotten it right. Even Daniel, who has risked death again and
again for his faith, admits even he hasn’t gotten it right. Yet still he asks. Why?
It’s not because he hopes in his nation to get it right. He clearly knows that won’t happen. No, he hopes in God’s mercy to make it right. But what Daniel could only hope in, we can
trust in.
For, while Daniel
risked his life for love of God, in Jesus, God gave his life for love of
us. And Daniel could not ask for
forgiveness on the basis of his righteousness, but on that cross, God in Jesus could
and did, even as we nailed him there.
And because he did, because on that cross, he got no mercy, you now have
mercy without end. You have the mercy
of the ultimate grace, the ultimate undeserved gift, the love of a God who
brings you back, even from the exile of death itself. And in that mercy, in that grace, anything
is possible, not simply resurrection in the life to come, but resurrection,
right here, right now.
At the end of that
Netflix movie, Tony Robbins tells this story.
When he was growing up, he tells the interviewer, he was simply trying
to survive in a household with an unstable, abusive mother, doing whatever he
could to protect himself and his siblings.
But as a sophomore in high school, he took a speech class. He wasn’t so interested in the class as in a
beautiful senior he wanted to impress.
So, to do so, he became the class clown, trying to crack everyone
up. One day, the teacher, Mr. Cobb,
said some dreaded words. Mr. Robbins, he
said, please stay behind. I need to talk
with you. Tony thought. I am so busted. But Mr. Cobb looked at him. He said, “You think you know why you’re
here. But you don’t. I know you’re just
trying to impress her. I don’t care
about that. But I see how you can hold
everyone’s attention. You aren’t just a
speaker, Mr. Robbins. You are a
communicator. And I know about your
home life too. Tony was thinking. How
can he possibly know about that? So I
am going to give you a speech called the Will to Win. I want you to read it, and if that speech
says what I think it does about your life, then I have this letter about a
contest in persuasive oratory. I want you to enter that contest, and deliver that
speech. Robbins said. I read that
speech, and it was all about not giving up, no matter what you face. And that was me, a man just clinging on by
sheer force of will. And I entered that
contest, and I won. And then I entered
more, and I won those. And I realized. I
had found a way to reach people, to connect.
As Tony tells the story, the tears start to come. The interviewer asks him. Why is it still an emotional experience for
you to even tell that story? Tony says. Because,
I see it as a moment of grace. That man,
in my life, handing me that letter, seeing who I was in that moment, that was
grace. It was a lot I’ve done, but that
was grace. I didn’t create that….It’s a
connection to the Divine, that it’s more than you, and I think that’s a healthy
thing.
Do you realize
that? It is more than you? It is a God who has given everything in Jesu
for you, so you can have abundant life, not just when you die, but right here, right
now. Where do you need that life? Where
do you need change? Where do you need
God to bring you resurrection? Wherever
it is, let him work. Let Jesus work his grace in you.
No comments:
Post a Comment