A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Berni Dymet
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God has a habit of wanting to speak right into the circumstances that we're travelling through here and now; the very issues that we each face in our everyday lives. Everything from dealing with difficult people … to discovering how God speaks to us; from overcoming stress … to discovering your God-given gifts and walking in the calling that God has placed on your life And that's what these daily 10 minute A Different Perspective messages are all about.

  1. 19h ago

    What You Say Behind Their Back // Are You a Blessing or a Burden? Part 5

    There's nothing worse than having people gossip about you, stab you behind your back. Well, actually there's one thing worse. It's when we gossip about others, when we're the ones stabbing someone else in the back. Yep –actually … that's worse. One of my favourite TV shows of all time is "Yes Prime Minister" – a very, very funny British comedy show about the behind the scenes, wheeling and dealing that goes on in politics. One of the characters is the very smart and conniving senior civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby. In one episode called, "A Conflict of Interest". The Prime Minister wants to appoint a new governor of the Bank of England to clean up the financial scandals happening in the financial sector. He settles on a man with a great reputation for honesty and integrity, someone who is fearless in tackling corruption. The junior and inexperienced civil servant Bernard arrives at the Cabinet office and relays the PM's message. He tells Sir Humphrey that the PM is keen to appoint this man Jameson to the Governorship. Sir Humphrey says his appointment would be appalling and it's his firm intention to change the Prime Minister's mind. He gives young Bernard a quick lesson in how to achieve this. Express full support for the candidate, Jameson, pointing out all his qualities but over-praising him to the point that the PM will also be concerned since he could undermine his own perceived qualities. As Sir Humphrey points out "it's necessary to get behind someone before you can stab them in the back". That's a great line isn't it? You have to get behind someone before you can stab them in the back. And as things turn out it's something that Sir Humphrey does extremely successfully. It's great to laugh at that idea in a sitcom but have you ever been stabbed in the back? Have you ever had someone praise you and then go behind your back to undermine you? It's not very nice is it? In fact, it can be devastating. When you know that people are whispering and muttering about you behind your back it's a terrible thing and you see it all the time especially where those people have something to gain. In my twenty or so years as a consultant, working in hundreds of different organisations, I can't tell you the number of times I've seen this ruthless back-room knifing of people in the back so that the person who is doing the back-stabbing can get his or her way or climb up another rung of the corporate ladder. Over this week, we've been chatting about how you and I can be a blessing rather than a burden to people, an asset rather than a liability, a part of the solution rather than part of the problem. I have to tell you being the honest broker behind someone else's back, dealing honestly and openly defending people is one way. I was once on a committee as the treasurer. My predecessor had handed me a terrible budget and so there wasn't enough income to run the operations of this organisation. After a lot of hard work on the budget and the finances in reducing costs I had to recommend to the annual general meeting of the members a very substantial increase in their annual levy fee. The following year I stepped off the committee and some of the new people on it apparently wanted to blame me for the problem and run me down behind my back. But there was one woman Sasha who took them to task, confronted them about the unwarranted criticism, set the record straight, told them that I was in fact the guy who had sorted out the problem and not created it. It took quite a bit of courage for her to do that but she did it. So have a think about this, how do you think I feel now towards Sasha? It's obvious isn't it? As far as I'm concerned she is very much a blessing and not a burden. She has my trust and if she asked me for something, if she asked me to do something I'd do it for her if it were at all possible. There's a Proverb in the Old Testament of the Bible that goes like this, Proverbs chapter 19, verse 1: Better is a poor person who walks with integrity than one who is crooked in speech and a fool. The Bible talks a lot about human plots and contentious tongues too, Psalm 31 verse 20. It's horrible when people are like that, isn't it? So here's how you can be an incredible blessing to someone. Be like Sasha. When people are gossiping or running down a person when they're not there, firstly don't be one to throw fuel on the fire, don't nod passively and contribute to the gossip but to the contrary pull people up. Hang on a minute, that's not quite fair, not sure whether we have all the circumstances straight here, did you know what actually happened? Sometimes people pull someone down simply because of that person's natural weaknesses or limitations. Hey, we all have those right? Sometimes they criticise someone by twisting the facts and sometimes they make fun of someone or find fault with them when that persons going through a really difficult personal trouble. None of those things are right; none of them are fair. If someone has wronged you then the way to deal with it is face-to-face, one on one, not by gossiping behind people's backs. Defending someone when they're not there to defend themselves is a huge blessing. Eventually the person you defended, it's going to get back to them somehow and when it does their trust in you, their admiration for you will grow immeasurably as mine did for Sasha. And those people whom you held to account for their gossip, hey they may not like it, in fact they may well start to gossip behind your back but in their heart of hearts they'll have a new found respect for you, they'll know that you are someone of integrity, someone with courage and someone not to be messed with. At the end of the day people like a person who plays with a straight bat, someone whom they can depend on, someone who's honest and direct and open even if they disagree with you. Again, there's another Old Testament Proverb that says this, Proverbs chapter 16 verse 13: Righteous lips are a delight of a king and he loves the person who speaks what is right. So I want to encourage you – when you have the opportunity to defend somebody's reputation when they're not there to defend themselves – I want to encourage you when you have the opportunity to speak straight up and down, to hold people to account for their gossip. I want to encourage you when you have the opportunity to bring the facts to the table, to be the person that does that. It's a thing of great leadership, it's a thing of great value and if we want to be somebody who is a blessing rather than a burden, an asset rather than a liability, a part of the solution rather than part of the problem this is one of the ways that we can do that. Let me tell you, God takes this stuff really seriously too, just quietly. Commandment number nine in the Ten Commandments says: You shall not bear false witness against a neighbour. What we say about each other matters to God. Again in James chapter 4: Do not speak evil against one another. The one who speaks it against a brother or judges his brothers, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law you're not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbour? God has a different way that He wants us to behave, not by stabbing each other in the back but by lifting one another up. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you along with all the malice. Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians chapter 4, verses 31 and 32) I can tell you I look out for this sort of integrity and goodness in people. Gossip is a terrible thing. Demeaning people is a terrible thing and one way that you and I can shine the light of God into some dark places and bless people is not to participate in gossip and instead do what God's calling us to do, to be kind and tender hearted and here's the crunch for me, to forgive people just the way that God's forgiven us. Jesus paid a price, a huge price, so that you and I could be forgiven. What an awesome thing it is to bring that forgiveness and goodness into the world through our behaviour. Want to be a blessing rather than a burden? Here's one way.

  2. 1d ago

    Compensating for Errors // Are You a Blessing or a Burden? Part 4

    When someone else makes a mistake, when they fall short of expectations, our natural reaction is to criticise them, or perhaps punish them. Ostracise them. But consider this – what if our first reaction was to compensate for them – to make up for their shortcomings with our natural gifts and abilities? How different would this world be, if we all did that? People's mistakes can be so annoying especially, let me say, when they make the same mistake over and over and over again which of course we all do. Now you might protest and say, "I don't make the same mistake over and over again." And my response to you would be "sure you do, we all do." Here's why ... There are some things that you're naturally good at and some things that you're not and there are some things that the next guy is naturally good at and some things that he isn't. So there you are the two of you good at different things and bad at different things. So you see the mistakes that he makes at the things you're good at, and you say to yourself, 'how can that guy keep on making the same mistake, it's so obvious?' And right while you're thinking that he's thinking exactly the same about you. My friend Keith is a great encourager, the sort of person you really enjoy spending an hour or two with over lunch. You come away feeling so much better about yourself. He recently sent me a document we'd both been working on; it was an 18-page contract that I'd developed meticulously with some lawyers. While I was away on holidays he needed to make a few changes but did he turn on the Word Processor's change-control feature so that I could see the changes he'd made? Nooo. Now I was about to get annoyed and then I remembered, hang on, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is Keith, we're talking about Keith here. He's a great encourager but when it comes to technology and admin and all that stuff he's a dead loss. It's the way he is and he's never going to be any different. Now I can't do what he does and he can't do what I do and that's the way, folks, it was always meant to be. And so I'm at that point confronted with exactly the same question that I hit you with at the top of the program, am I going to criticise him or am I going to help him? Which will it be? See this is a question that confronts each one of us at least several times a day. Think of the people you've been annoyed with over the last twenty-four hours, what was the source of the annoyance? How did you respond? Did you criticise them or did you help them? The series of message we're in right at the moment is called "Are You a Blessing or a Burden?" inspired by a great quote from Dr Tayo Adeyemi in the UK. He said: You are either a blessing or a burden, an asset or a liability, a problem solver or a problem. It's your choice. And so we're on a bit of a journey to discover some practical rubber hits the road kind of things that you and I can do to be more of a blessing than a burden; to be more of part of the solution rather than being part of the problem. And this is really a practical thing we can do. When someone makes a mistake, we can stuff our pride back into our pocket and choose to help them instead of criticising them. And when you think about it as much as it maybe a counter-intuitive thing to do it actually makes an enormous amount of sense both for them and for us. I'm going to read you a short passage from the Old Testament, a Book written about three thousand years ago called the Book of Ecclesiastes. It's purported to have been written by one of the wisest men who's ever lived, King Solomon of Israel. Its Ecclesiastes chapter 4, verses 9 to 12: Two people are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. If they fall one will lift the other up but woe to the one who is alone and falls and doesn't have another to help. Again if two lie down together they keep warm but how can one keep warm alone? And though one might prevail against another, two withstand one, actually a three fold cord is not quickly broken. I was sharing this with a bunch of people once and I did it visually. I had two people hold a single piece of rope tight and then I cut it in the middle, well of course at that point the rope failed. Then we took two ropes and wound them around each other and around and around and around, then I got the people to hold them again tight and I cut one rope on the right and I cut the other rope in the middle and I cut the first rope on the left. See the ropes pretty much hung together because what happened was that the second rope compensated for the first in the places where it was cut and it had failed and vice versa. Then we took three ropes and plaited them together as a woman would plait her hair. I got the people to hold this thing tight, I cut each of the three ropes in two different places and you know what, you could pull as hard as you like and the ropes didn't fail. I could actually sit on them and they wouldn't come apart. That's the picture here. You and I have the capacity to compensate for the failures and the weaknesses of others and because we're all different, we're all strong in different places, we're all weak in different places, when we're bound together in a relationship as a team we can compensate for one another in those different places just as the ropes did. I cleaned up the mess with the contract that Keith couldn't, and you know what, he goes out and encourages members of our team in a way I couldn't do. And you know something, that's how it's meant to be, it's exactly how it's meant to work. The beauty of that, the reason that it makes so much sense is that together in a mutually supportive relationship in a team of two or three or four or even ten people we can achieve so much more. Now some teams don't achieve anything because they're always fighting and criticising. If we want to be a blessing rather than a burden, an asset rather than a liability, a part of the solution rather than the problem there are two parts to this. The first is bringing all our skills and abilities to the table with energy and gusto and dedication and hard work. That's the first part. The second part is having the wisdom and the humility to use those skills, to use those abilities, to compensate for the weaknesses of others. If we each have that level of wisdom and maturity then our team, our relationship, I'll tell you, it's going to be completely unstoppable. A team with people in it who are prepared to compensate for one another is going to achieve some amazing things. Now serving one another takes humility, a much under rated attribute these days is humility. It's about laying aside what we think we're entitled to and pitching in and serving anyway. Humility is serving people even when in our superior judgement they don't deserve it. Humility is rising above the petty bickering and the point scoring and the recognition and the reward seeking and just getting on to achieve the aim. Humility is shutting our mouths when we feel like complaining, when others around us are behaving like two-year olds and by the goodness of our example, by our faithfulness, by our quiet assurance, showing people the way forward. That's humility. Takes a strong and mature and a wise person to live out that sort of humility. The best leaders are the humble ones, 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 5: All of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another for God opposes the proud but he gives grace to the humble. Hey that's powerful stuff. We often think when we read stuff like that in God's Word, hey I know someone that that's meant for. You know who it's meant for? It's meant for you and me today. It's meant for us to take to heart. Listen, God opposes the proud. Is it really the way to go, to live our lives in a way that God is always going to oppose us with all His might and all His power? And yet He gives grace to the humble. Humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God. That's how we become more of a blessing than a burden, more of an asset than a liability and more of a solution than part of the problem. That's exactly how we do this stuff.

  3. 2d ago

    The Person Comes First // Are You a Blessing or a Burden? Part 3

    We all have people in our lives who annoy us, drive us crazy and sometimes hurt us. You can picture them right now. So today, tomorrow – what are you going to do to bless those people in your life? Bless them?! You'd have to be crazy right? Let's face it, we don't jump out of bed in the morning with the purpose of blessing the most annoying and irritating and hurtful person in our lives do we? I mean have you ever woken up with that intention in your heart? No, I didn't think so, most people haven't and the fact that blessing the most irritating person in our lives isn't first and foremost on our minds tells us something about ourselves. What it tells us is that we're far more concerned about ourselves than other people. Now you might think that's a bit unfair, I mean after all this person drives you crazy. Most days it seems they don't have a single redeeming feature. Why on earth would you want to bless them? Why on earth would you want to do something good and kind and loving for them, they drive you around the bend? Let's just analyse that response for a moment because it's pretty common. In fact, it's our natural response to recoil from people who annoy us. So let's think it through, let's put the emotion aside for a moment and just apply simple forensic logic. If we choose to bless or not bless a person based on their impact on us, then quite clearly we are more concerned about how their actions affect us than we are about how we could help them. In other words, what we're doing is putting ourselves first and them last. It maybe that we're doing it to protect ourselves, maybe that we're doing it out of our notions of what they deserve and what they don't deserve, it maybe that we're doing it because of an emotional response of anger or resentment or hurt or fear. Whatever the reason the choice to withhold blessing from a person who annoys us or hurts us is based on us and not them. See we tend to judge people by how they look, how they speak, how they smell frankly, what their society status is, what they earn, where they live, what they drive, how they speak, how they act. We judge people based on our prejudices and their outward appearance and when you put it that way it's a bit scary. I'm trying to imagine here for a moment if my parents had judged me that way back when I was growing up and being a difficult teenager. I mean looking back on it with the wisdom that comes with years, man I must have been a difficult teenager. I was tough and strong and smart and quick and very self-centred and to be sure my mother and father did get rather annoyed and angry with me from time to time. Fair enough you'd have to say, it's par for the course and sometimes to teach me a lesson they withdrew their blessing, that's the way it ought to be. But overall they didn't stop blessing me, they didn't stop loving me, they didn't stop wanting the best for me. Anyone who's a parent knows what I'm talking about as does anyone who has the maturity to look back on their childhood and see how much their parents sacrificed for them. If we know this as parents, hey, why don't we know it as wives and husbands? Why don't we know it as brothers and sisters? Why don't we know it as work colleagues and friends? I'll tell you why, because somehow along the way we've been programmed to look after numero uno, ourselves, me, you. Come on its true isn't it? Now let's get back to our natural response in dealing with those difficult people in our lives and let me ask you, how well is it working? When you look at the conflict in your life, the conflict in families, neighbourhoods, suburbs, villages, towns, cities, between countries even. When we look at the almost fifty wars raging across the planet today, when we look at how the poor and the marginalised are faring, how well is our current approach actually working? You'd have to conclude by any measure not very well at all. I wonder if there's a different way, a different plan, some totally different rationale that we can apply in order to be a blessing rather than a burden, a problem solver rather than part of the problem. Try this on for size: You've heard it said, said Jesus, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but I tell you don't resist the evil doer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek turn the other also and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give them your cloak as well and if anyone forces you to go one mile go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. I'm not a great student of history but there are a couple of men whose lives exemplify this very thing that Jesus was talking about. One of them is Mahatma Ghandi, famous of course for leading the movement that resulted in the end of the British Colonial rule of India, the independence of the country, which went on to spawn the largest democracy on the planet. Ghandi was the son of a highly placed government official yet he turned his back on all that privilege to lead a movement of non-violent disobedience. No one can argue that Ghandi isn't one of the greatest national leaders in all of human history. Look at his life and you'll see exactly what Jesus was talking about. The other one is Nelson Mandela, a man who was the leader of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. He spent twenty-seven years in prison and when he was finally released and he became the president of the country, instead of leading a violent purge of retribution against his former jailers and oppressors, he presided over a period of healing and reconciliation. Yeah sure, South Africa has a way to go but if anyone can be said to have turned the other cheek it would have to be Nelson Mandela. Neither of these men were particularly followers of Jesus and what He taught, that's not my point, my point is that they're lives are a testament to the truth of what Jesus said about turning the other cheek and going the extra mile. See at the end of the day love, service, sacrifice, these are the things that change the difficult people around us. They're the only things that can change the difficult people around us. The thing that I've noticed about turning the other cheek is that it hurts. Jesus wasn't just talking figuratively there; He was talking about practical real things that happen. Man if someone hit me in the cheek I'd want to punch their lights out not turn the other one. If someone sued me for my coat, the last thing I'd want to do is offer them my cloak as well. So why is Jesus telling us this stuff? Why is He coming up with this totally counter intuitive, totally against the grain approach to dealing with people who drive us round the twist? Here's why, because it's the only way you'll ever change them. When we respond to someone with love, practical love, when they know that they don't deserve it; when we do it to them again and again and again, love them when they don't deserve it, it's going to have an impact on them. Eventually they're going to ask the question, hang on why is this person treating me the way I don't deserve? How can they have that sort of strength? And the answer we're able to share with them is this, well … have a listen to that Jesus guy and it's hard some days but actually it makes sense. Love is the only thing that will change the world and when we love people who don't deserve it you know what we're telling them? We're saying, "you are more important to me than how you behave. You are more important to me than the hurt you've caused me." Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think there is any more powerful way of reaching a person, of communicating with them than with practical love which they simply don't deserve. That sort of love has a way of getting through even the hardest heart; it's about mercy and grace. When you think about it mercy is withholding from a person the punishment they deserve and grace is giving them love that they don't deserve. It turns out this stuff really works.

  4. 3d ago

    A Change of Direction // Are You a Blessing or a Burden? Part 2

    Let's face it – we've been programmed to believe that happiness is something we get when good things come our way. When the blessing flows into us. Hmm. Problem is that it's just not true. The joy and contentment we've been looking for only happen, when the blessing flows outwards, from us to others. I've told this story I think once before on the program a few years ago so if you've heard it well tough. Isn't it funny how with your favourite song you're happy to hear it again and again on the radio but you hear some guy speaking instead of singing and they tell the same story, one you heard like six years ago or something and you go, "ah I've heard him tell that one before." So … humour me, here is the story. It's about the first time I used satellite navigation in a car. I'd flown from Sydney to London and we had an unscheduled four-hour delay at our stopover in Singapore, some weak excuse about the plane being broken or something like that. So instead of landing in London in the afternoon in the daylight it was like pitch black and raining by the time I picked my hire car up at Heathrow airport. Now fortunately for a few extra pounds I could hire a Sat Nav unit for the car because I was driving up to the Midlands which, given the traffic and the weather, was like, I don't know, a three-and-a-half-hour drive. I had absolutely no idea on how to get there but the friendly woman at the hire car place punched my destination address into the Sat Nav unit and told me how to use it and off I went. Now the British are pretty clever at this, they have rather long postcodes to define not only the town but actually the street and the street number. So all she had to do was punch this code, this number into the Sat Nav, I forget how many digits it was, and hey presto I was on my way. Great stuff. But about an hour and a half into the trip I started to get really worried, it's the first time I've driven in England and compared to Australia they have lots and lots of freeways. In Australia there's like one road between Sydney and Melbourne and we don't have too many of those major cities either. In the UK there are a lot of cities, there are a lot of roads, there are a lot of intersections on the freeways. I mean what if she punched one or even two wrong numbers into that clever little Sat Nav unit. That's what I was worrying about. I mean it's a really clever little thing, it tells you where to turn, when left, when right, third exit from the roundabout, all good stuff but this clever efficient little unit could well be taking me to a completely different part of the country if she punched the wrong numbers in. I remember when the thought hit me; it was kind of a panic attack. I'm in this foreign land, I don't know where I'm going, what if she's got me heading in the wrong direction? I didn't know any of the cities or place names on the signs, so I simply had no idea whether I was in the right place or not. So I pulled over, I stopped, I checked and fortunately she had in fact punched in the right numbers and I was going in the right direction and eventually some time around midnight I got there. Fantastic. But when you think about it we make choices in life, we head in the direction that we head in in life based rather a lot on the way in which we've been programmed to function. Our parents, our teachers, our experiences, our selfishness, capitalism, desires, all those things somehow little by little end up putting us on a certain road heading in a certain direction. And when we come to intersections and roundabouts and forks in the road of life, we choose based on what? Well it turns out we're a little bit like that clever little Sat Nav unit in my car. We choose based on how we've been programmed over the course of our lives. So what if you're heading in the wrong direction? Have you ever thought about that? Well there's a very obvious consequence if you are, if you're heading in the wrong direction in life you aren't going to arrive at the place you're wanting to, that you were hoping to, that you were expecting to. This week on the program we're asking the question of each one of us, am I a blessing or am I a burden? Am I an asset or am I a liability? Am I a problem solver or am I the problem? And a lot of it has to do with the direction we're headed in. Not just a slight shift for most of us but a profound shift, a radical shift, a 180-degree change in direction is required. Whatever you may think of Him this man Jesus, a couple of thousand years ago, said some really profound things. One of them was this, He said: It is more blessed to give than to receive. Just a few small words but in them is the power to make that 180-degree shift and it's not an easy one to make. We all know that turning a big ship around from steaming ahead north full throttle to heading south isn't something you do in a few hundred yards or metres. If a big ship is powering ahead north it can take miles for it to slow down and turn around and head south. Our lives are like that because the idea that all the blessings should flow into us and then we'll be happy, it's so seductive, it's so powerful. We are heading in that direction full steam. It's been programmed into us much like that little address code was plugged into the Sat Nav. The problem with this direction, the idea that blessing flows inwards is that it doesn't get us to where we want to be. We get to the destination and the sense of happiness and contentment and fulfilment that we were expecting by making ourselves the centre of the universe, they're just not there. Now I know that because I spent a lot of my life heading in that direction and chances are you know it too because you've tried it and it hasn't worked. We want it to work, I mean we really, really do want it to work but wanting isn't enough because it is a fundamental law of the universe that when we spend all our effort, time and money and talents trying to make ourselves happy, we'll never be happy. Listen again to the profound shift of direction in what Jesus said. It is more blessed to give than to receive. In other words when we change the direction of the flow of blessing from inward to outward that's when we experience the happiness, the contentment that we've been looking for. Any parent who has struggled and sacrificed to bring up children can tell you that because there's nothing more satisfying, I mean nothing than when we're able to use who we are and what we have to leave a lasting mark of love and encouragement and achievement and blessing on the heart of another. Hey, blessing's awesome. If it flows out of us, we are indeed a blessing. If we want it to always flow into us, then I have to tell you we're going to be a burden. Can I tell you the Bible is replete with Scriptures that speak about this very thing, yet scores of people are being robbed of the sheer delight and the joy that comes when we bless others because someone's punched the wrong destination into us? 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 10: As each has received a gift use it to serve one another as good stewards of Gods very grace. Galatians chapter 5, verses 13 to 14: For you are called to freedom brothers only don't use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in this, 'you shall love your neighbour as yourself. John chapter 13, verses 12 to 14: When he'd washed their feet and put his outer garments back on he said to them, 'don't you understand what I've done, you call me teacher and Lord and you're right because I am. If I then your Lord and teacher have washed your feet you also should wash one another's feet. Hey, that's just a few of those Scriptures, there are lots more and not because God wants to make us slaves but because He knows how we function, that's how He made us and He wants us to be free and freedom is this, it's when we're using who we are and what we have to love others by serving them and it's then that we discover that as all this blessing flows downward from God and outward through us to others, our hearts light up with this joy that all along we've been looking for. Jesus was right; it really is more blessed to give than to receive. Now how come I didn't think of that?

  5. 4d ago

    Asset or Liability // Are You a Blessing or a Burden? Part 1

    There seem to be basically two types of people in this world – those who are a blessing and those who are a burden; those who are an asset and those who are a liability. Which one are you? One of the things I love doing is tweeting. Some people don't even know what twitter is. That's okay, I was there once. Some can't understand the fascination but I love it, here's why. Twitter helps me to stay in touch with people who matter to me, people I respect and admire. People who live in the next suburb or clear across the other side of the world. What's happening in their lives, a funny experience, some great insight and even some great quotes. It's quick, it's easy and when I stop for a quick break and get a cup of tea in the middle of a busy day I pull out my phone or my iPad and just quickly check to see what's come through on twitter and since each tweet is limited to a hundred a forty characters it's nice and quick. The other day on twitter I picked up this quote from Dr Tayo Adeyemi in the UK. Now I'm not sure if I've pronounced his surname correctly there. Anyhow this quote really caught my eye. This is what he said: You are either a blessing or a burden, as asset or a liability, a problem solver or a problem, it's your choice. Short, quick, profound and it got me to thinking. I started going through all the people that I know, people I've worked with, friends and colleagues and you know something, it was really easy to categorise them either on the one side of the ledger or on the other. Let's stick with that accounting metaphor for a moment, are they an asset or a liability? Hmm, it's a sobering thought and I'm imagining that if you went through the same exercise you'd be able to put all the people you know either on the one side of that ledger or on the other. Of course nobody is a complete liability nor is anyone so perfect that they're a complete asset. We all contribute to some extent and we all drain to some extent as well. That's because, of course, none of us is perfect and then we're all good at different things. But even taking all those things into consideration on balance, weighing all their pro's and con's, some people overall are assets, others overall are liabilities. Some are a blessing, others are a burden. Some are problem solvers, and some are plain and simple the problem. So then I began to imagine a world in which more and more of us became assets rather than liabilities. In fact call me crazy if you will, just imagine a world for a moment where everyone is an asset and no one is a liability. Just stop and think about that. Imagine how different this world would actually be. So that's the quote in a thought process that inspired this series of messages called "Are You a Blessing or a Burden?" and that's the question isn't it? Because you and I aren't necessarily in a position to change the whole world, we can't change every one of the seven point something billion people on the planet, hey we can't even change our wives or our husbands or our children most of the time. But there is one person we can change, ourselves – you, me. I wonder if you considered yourself for a moment, on balance, and asked, 'am I a blessing or a burden to the people around me, an asset or a liability, a problem solver or part of the problem'? We have to be kind of careful when answering those questions because if the truth be known we're a lot more generous in judging ourselves than we are in judging other people. We're so good at rationalising our weaknesses and our failures and blind spots aren't we? We trivialise them and we sweep them under the carpet. Okay so if I asked the people close to you, family members, work colleagues, whether you are on this side of the ledger or that, how would they answer? A couple of thousand years ago the Apostle Paul was sitting on death row in a Roman dungeon. He's writing a letter to his friends in a place called Philippi and this is one of the things he says to them, Philippians chapter 2, verses 3 and 4: Don't do anything from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each one of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. It's an encouragement, an exhortation to be a blessing instead of a burden. If we're expecting everybody to do stuff for us, to look out for our interests, to meet our needs and yet we don't do the same for them because all we care about is us, not them. You know what they call that? That's being a hypocrite. This thing call it what you will, selfishness, self-centredness, whatever there's some of that in each one of us. See how Paul starts out, he says to his friends and to you and me; do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit. Imagine a sea, a land-locked sea like the Dead Sea for instance where all the rivers flow in but none of them flow out. It's exactly what happens with the Dead Sea. The only way water gets out is through evaporation by the heat of the sun and the reason it's called the Dead Sea is because there is so much salt in the water that not a single organism pretty much can live there. Our selfishness is like the Dead Sea. We want everything to flow inward towards us, we want others to be a blessing to us, we want circumstances to favour us, we want the sun to shine on us, we want, we want, we want. It's all about the direction of the flow of the blessing. Many a man's life, many a woman's life, writes a man called S D Gordon a couple of hundred years ago, is like the circumference of that Dead Sea. When everything flows inwards it's dead and by experience you and I know that's true. Hey, I'm someone who spent the first half of his life trying to live it that way and I wondered all the time why it never satisfied me, why I was never truly happy and contented. See Paul addresses both sides of this equation in the short passage we just read. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but instead look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. In other words, stop living your life trying to be the guy who is blessed all the time and start blessing other people. Turn the direction of the flow from inwards to outwards. And then as evidence of the fact this radically different approach actually works, he goes on to cite the prime example, the most obvious example, in the very next breath he says and I'm reading here from a message translation, Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 to 11: Stop thinking of yourselves the way you are, think instead the way Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but he didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all, when the time came he set aside the privileges of his deity and took the status of a slave and became human. Having become human he stayed human, it was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges, instead he lived a selfless obedient life and then he died a selfless obedient death and the worst kind of death at that, a crucifixion. Because of that obedience God lifted him high and honoured him far beyond anyone or anything ever so that all created beings in heaven and on earth, even those long ago dead and buried, will bow down in worship before this Jesus Christ and call out in praise that he is the master of all to the glory and honour of God the Father. In other words, the answer is in being a blessing instead of being a burden, an asset instead of a liability, a problem solver instead of a problem. It's about a complete fundamental, 180-degree change in direction from having blessing flowing inwards to getting the blessing to flow outwards to other people. There's an awful lot in that so we're going to spend some more time over the course of this week on the program chatting about this very thing and in the meantime let me leave you with that quotation I gave you for you to ponder. You are either a blessing or a burden, an asset or a liability, a problem solver or a problem, it's your choice.

  6. Oct 30

    A Future With Hope // The Life That Almost Wasn't, Part 5

    Some people are trapped by the past – and that ruins their present and robs them of their future. But Jesus has a plan. It's a good plan. A plan for our welfare and not our harm. A plan for a future full of hope. The past, some people look back at their past with a fondness, they remember their childhood with great joy but the more I chat with people the more I firm up on my belief that it's simply not the case for most people. The more I chat with people the more I come to realise that for many, many people the hold that the things of the past have over their lives is ruining their present and robbing them of their future and man that is such a tragedy. It was never meant to be like that. As we saw yesterday on the program God wants us to have a new life, a fresh start when we put our faith in Jesus. Completely new, that's why His Word says in the second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 17: If anyone is in Christ right there is a new creation. Behold old things have passed away and all things are new. If you've been tuning in over this past week you'll know that my guest on the program again today is Mike Ricchini and we've been on his life's journey, a little bit, as much as we can in the short times we've had. He was born into some really tough circumstances, foster care, adoption, the victim of some deep racial prejudices, all those things have an impact on us and so we've been chatting with him about that, if you've missed any of those interviews I'll let you know at the end of the program how you can listen to them. But right now Mike welcome again to the program. Mike: Thank you. Berni: Mate, the lies that you were told when you were growing up, when you were like fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, what did they do to how you saw your future? Did you even see a future for yourself? What was that like? Mike: I did see a future. I've always wanted to be a teacher for kids in the schools and I've always had that as my goal for life but often times going through school there were always kids that were better than me. They're always the ones that say, "Yep I've got better grades than you" or "Dude you're never going to make it that far that's why you're going to be a teacher, you'll never end up in something successful because only the teachers are the ones that suffered at school." So I often viewed myself as the stupid one, the one that's dumb because the only thing I could do is become a teacher. Berni: So you had this dream if I can call it that, the heart to become a teacher. Did you ever think you'd realise the dream, did you ever get, did you ever think it would happen? Mike: I did. Since I was in middle school which is grade six through eight I've always been working with my dad, my Dad's a teacher also so I've been working with him. Even through high school I started interning at my school, helping with the kids, helping any way I could with kids. Berni: That is awesome. Isn't interesting how God takes who He's made us to be and puts a dream on our heart? I mean different people receive their dreams at different times. I never dreamt that I'd be doing what I'm doing now but there was a point in my life where God gave me very specific that dream and calling in my life and even though there had been lots and lots of times where you think it's never going to happen, it's just not, I never stopped believing, like you I never stopped believing that it would happen. Can I encourage you, when I heard you speak the other Sunday and you'd never preached at a Church right? Mike: No. Berni: I was blown away by how well you communicated; you have an amazing gift of communication I have to tell you. To be able to get up the first time you preach at a Church, to be able to preach such a corker of a message is just awesome. It took me forty years just to realise my gig in life is being a communicator. I hope you realise it much earlier and you're much quicker at it than me because you have an awesome future in communicating God's love and communicating God's truth. And your background, this tough background, Hispanic kid, mum's fifteen, drug addict, all that stuff, that's woven into the fabric of who you are; it makes you who you are and it gives you an awesome gift. Sorry I'm just, we're just chatting here, if anyone is listening that's cool, Mike and I are just having a conversation here. God bless you and I really, really encourage you don't ever lose the sight of the fact that you are an awesome communicator. Mike: Thank you. Berni: What's it feel like to know that you have a future? I mean it was ugly back then as a kid, what does it feel like to know that you have a future, you know have a dream, you know you have a gift and you're going to go and do it? Mike: I think the greatest thing is knowing that it's there but with everything there's often a fear of failure and I've definitely had that fear because people have told me, "oh you're not going to succeed, you're only doing this because you're stupid" or "teachers are for stupid people". I've had that fear that I'm not going to be a good teacher. I didn't used to be good at communicating, in high school couldn't get up in front of my class and talk to them. Berni: Yeah I did the same thing. Mike: I had that fear and it's something that you've got to learn to get over it, you've just got to learn to trust God. Berni: The first three or four hundred times are the hardest okay and after that it gets a lot easier. That's my gift of encouragement. You do have a fear don't you? You have a dream, you want to reach your dream and yet you look at your circumstances in the reality of your life and all the stuff that was going on that you've talked about and you think the gap between where I am now and reaching that dream is a huge one and it's a scary one. Mike: Yeah it is. Berni: See a lot of people – I mean you were very fortunate and blessed to have that dream early on – a lot of people have been through difficult tough times as you have been but in different circumstances, they actually don't have a dream and there's no hope for the future and there's nothing to look forward to. And I remember a time in my life when I didn't have any future to look forward to and there was no hope, that is the most shattering thing in the world. Jeremiah chapter 29 which I'm sure you're familiar with and a lot of people who are listening are familiar with: Thus, says the Lord, only when Babylon is seventy years complete I will visit you and I will fulfil to you the promise of bringing you back to this place, for surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for your harm, to give you a future with hope. Listen to that people, plans to give you a future with hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. Is that not an awesome promise? This is Israel, their country has been destroyed, the Temple has been destroyed, they've been taken by the Babylonians into captivity, they're doubting that their God even has the power to deal with the Babylonians, they're saying 'what's going on here', they have no future and God in that place comes and speaks hope into their lives. You are really blessed to have had a dream from early on, there are people who haven't had that dream from early on and I just want to take you to that truth, Jeremiah chapter 29, verses 10 to 12 is what we just read. It's great having hope isn't it? Mike: It is. Berni: Yeah it's great being able to look forward to a future. I just want to pray right now for people who are struggling with that, people who don't have hope in their lives because it's a scary thing. Let's just take a minute now and pray. Father There are people today, you know exactly who they are, your hand is upon them, you are in that place with them who do not have hope for the future, who do not have a vision for the future, who do not have a dream for who you made them to be and what you made them to do. Father I pray that as we've shared with Mike today, as we've spent some time together talking about stuff, I pray that you would speak your purposes and your plans into their lives by your Spirit. I pray just as your Word has been read, just as we've spoken your Word over everybody who's gathered around your table right now, around your Word that you will give us a future that has welfare and not harm, to give us a future with hope, I pray that that Word into the lives of everybody listening today, every soul, every person, every man, every woman, every child, everyone who is hurting and is without hope. I pray that you would make the reality of your certain hope through Jesus Christ the reality of their lives. I ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Berni: Mike it has been awesome to have you and I really thank you for making the time to come in and chat with us. Mike: Sure. Berni: One last word, one last thing you want to say to people. Mike: Yes, a burden on my heart is this power of words and Matthew 12 talks about: Out of the abundance of our heart our mouth speaks. And it's very important to look at the words you share with people, every word that you say has power to affect people and it's clearly words that have affected my life. It's words that ruined most of my life but then it's words that healed my life as well. And just understanding Gods forgiveness, His truth and His Word that He showed me I can now show to other people and we've just got to examine our words, examine our heart and the ways that we've been hurt so we can now affect people in a positive way and build people up. Berni: God bless you, thanks mate.

  7. Oct 29

    The Impact of the Lies // The Life That Almost Wasn't, Part 4

    The lies that the world tells us about ourselves – who we are, who we aren't, who we should be – you know all that stuff – we'd like to think they don't have any impact – water off a duck's back. But that's just not true.  Sticks and stones aren't the only things that break our bones – because words do truly hurt us. I don't know if you've been able to join us so far on the program this week but I'm joined again today by my special guest in the studio, Mike Ricchini who has an amazing life story. We've been walking in his shoes for a bit, understanding what God's been doing in his life. Born as the second child of a fifteen year old mother and removed from her care by the authorities, into foster care where he really wasn't loved, finally adopted by white parents and growing up in white schools in America, as a Hispanic kid looked down upon, taunted by his friends. This guy has every reason to have a bitter and twisted outlook on life, don't you think? This guy has every reason to be angry or withdrawn or whatever and yet God's doing an amazing work in setting him free from the past. Okay, it's a work in progress, but today I want to have a look at specifically the lies that God's set him free from because so often in our lives it's the lies that we've been told about ourselves that rob us of having a great life, it's like the world is perpetrating this huge fraud on us. I remember coming out of my teen years with a total lack of belief in myself, without a balanced outlook of who I was and who I wasn't and what I was capable of and what I wasn't. It's something that would haunt me for another twenty years or so before God started setting it right. Berni: Mike welcome again today on the program. Mike: Thanks. Berni: Huge to have you here. I guess you've had a chance to really look back, to think about, to reflect on the impact of your childhood on your life today. Can I ask you, out of everything that went on what's the single biggest hurdle, what's the single biggest disappointment, what's the single biggest impact on your life? Mike: I think the biggest thing for me is just being adopted, it's honestly something that unless you've been adopted it's hard to cope with. It's hard to understand and adoption pretty much puts a sign above you that says you weren't loved and humans run by love, if we're not loved we die, if we're not loved then we're going to stop believing good stuff about ourselves, we're only going to believe negative things about ourselves. And having that sign over my head my whole life I automatically believed negative things about myself. Berni: Even though, I mean you said the other day on the program that your adoptive parents are your heroes in life and the love that you experience from them was massive but it still somehow didn't erase that sense of 'I'm a second class citizen because I'm adopted'. Mike: No, it never will unless you really forgive the original source and for me it would be my biological mum and I never erased or forgave my mum and because of that the hatred and the hurt is still there. Berni: So how do you stop living that hatred? How do you stop feeling that disappointment? I mean when the rubber hits the road what is it that changes things for you? How do you start getting set free from the past? Mike: What set me free was knowing that God loves me and that was ... Berni: It sounds corny doesn't it? I mean you say it like that, "well you know I know that God loves me" and someone might be listening and say, "Boy! That's a corny line." Tell me why it's not a corny line. Mike: It's not because it's true and it's a hard thing to understand because you go to Church every single Sunday and say God loves you but many humans don't understand what true love is. Most of my life sadly I was addicted to pornography and so I was giving into love that doesn't really exist, love that you see through a screen and so I didn't really know what God's love looked like. That's a love that no matter what happens to you in life, no matter what circumstances or trials or situations you're in, financial, health or whatever, His love is still going to be there and He's always going to be helping you, holding your hand and directing you. Berni: There's a passage in the Bible, its 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17, it says that: If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation. Behold old things have passed away and all things are new. Have you ever thought about that one verse, that powerful truth in the context of who you once were and who you are today? Mike: Yeah I'm so grateful for verses like that where you realise that your old person, who you used to be, it doesn't have to be the same anymore because of the work that Jesus did on the cross and because of that now I feel free, I feel like a release like all the hatred that I had towards people, not necessarily coming towards me, that I had towards people is now gone and I can just totally turn around and walk away with God knowing that He's helping me the whole way. Berni: Do you feel a bit like that old you, that old person that's talked about here, is almost like a different person? You look back at that old Mike and you think, 'that was me but it's not really me anymore'. Mike: Yeah I try not to even think about it anymore because when I look at just adoption in general or rejection or hatred it brings back memories, the memories are still there, they're never going to go away but if you can just release, forgiveness is a powerful thing. Berni: Have you forgiven your birth mum? Mike: I have, it was extremely hard but with the power of words that you have, just saying, "I forgive my mum." It took a whole hour of me saying it over and over and over and crying but afterwards I knew I'd forgiven her, I knew the forgiveness was there as I just spread forgiveness over the whole situation. Berni: Forgiving the people who have hurt us is so huge in moving on. There's so many people living the hurts of the past and I've had people who have really hurt me and for me it didn't happen in an hour, I've got to tell you it took months and years of doing what God says, what Jesus says is love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you and praying for the people who have hurt you is one of the hardest things you can do but it's one of the most liberating and freeing things that I reckon that you can do. Are there some days when you still want to fall back and believe the old lies? Does the devil come and knock on your brain and go, "well you realise you are adopted, you realise that your mother didn't love you?" Does that happen? Mike: Yeah I found that after I forgave my mum and after I turned from my former sense, now the devil tries even harder to get me to fall back. Berni: Sure he does, before you weren't a problem for him. Mike: And it's funny how he works because as I began to study I realised, the devil knows humans extremely well, he's been studying them for thousands of years and so he knows our weak points, he knows when it's easy for us to fall and he knows as soon as adoption comes up, as soon as I see rejection or start to feel rejection he's going to start throwing lies at me and it's a battle that we need to fight back, we need to say the truths that we know about God, that He believes about us, that we are loved. Berni: It's the Word of God over your life. I mean the Bible's really clear, the one where Paul is talking about the body armour of God, you know the one offensive weapon that we have is the sword, the one thing we can attack with is the sword and the sword is the Word of God and if we know what God says about us then we're free. Let's imagine there's someone out there today listening who's struggling with their self image right now, they're listening to you, they kind of relate because their past is robbing them of the present, what have you got to say to them? What's the one thing you want to say to that person today? Mike: I just want to say that God loves you no matter what and I know that a lot of people have situations like this maybe situations that are extremely far beyond what I can even imagine but it doesn't matter because Jesus went through so much more. By Him dying on the cross was the worst form of torture possible, the worst form of punishment or trial that anybody could go through so no matter what you're going through Jesus has been through far more and not only that but because of Him dying on the cross He welcomes you into His family and says I'll take all the pain you've been through, I'll take all the sin that you've done or had done towards you and the power is forgiveness, forgiving the people from your past but recognising that Jesus forgives you. Berni: And those words from a young man who is himself experiencing the healing power of Gods love. Mike thank you very much.

  8. Oct 28

    Turning Point // The Life That Almost Wasn't, Part 3

    This week on the program, I'm joined by a special guest Mike Ricchini – who had one of the most difficult starts in life and a tough childhood as an Hispanic Kid in a white neighbourhood in America –and today he's going to be sharing how it was that his life took a turn for the better. The last couple of weeks on the program we've been chatting about the fact that the lies that the world and people tell us about ourselves: who we are, what we're capable of, what we're not capable of, who we should be. Those lies are so powerful they can destroy our lives, there's such power in words. And over the last couple of days and again today I'm joined by my very special guest, Mike Ricchini, who had so many lies thrown at him. Born as the illegitimate child of a fifteen year old girl, her second child, bumped around, in foster care onto adoption, white parents. But he's Hispanic and that was a huge deal at school as we saw yesterday on the program. And it's not just his life, you see it's your life and my life too. I remember I was short and dumpy. I was no good at sport, couldn't run fast and in Australia where sport is our national religion that's going to draw some enemy fire. I remember as I headed into my late teens and early adulthood I had a terrible self image and the way that I coped with that was through anger and through rolling over the top of people with this apparently amazing self confidence which was really nothing more than a protective mechanism against the hurts of the past. It's something that's taken me a lifetime to unlearn. So that's me, what about you, something for you to think about? But right now because he's sitting here in the studio with me we're going to chat with Mike Ricchini about him. Berni: Mike, welcome again to the program. Mike: Thank you. Berni: And I want to start off by asking you, that as you look back on all the stuff that you went through in those early years, the family that was meant to love you, the foster family that didn't love you and then being adopted in a family and learning to be loved, how did that impact on how you saw yourself, your self image, your understanding of who you actually were? Mike: Honestly, it was destroyed. I didn't have a self image most of my life. I viewed myself as worthless and I viewed myself as nobody, I didn't have a place in this world. I often asked God, 'God why am I here? Why did you bring me into this world? Why am I suffering right now?' I've gone through trial after trial throughout my life and I keep asking God. Sadly I've tried taking my life several times just because I feel like I'm nobody; I don't have a name in this world. I felt going through school, through sports that I'm Mr Nobody, I'm not good at anything. I've had those lies thrown at me my whole life – you're not going to succeed, you're not good at anything – and I believed them. Berni: Because there's a lot of power in those lies isn't there? There's a lot of power in the lies that people, circumstances and society tell us and as you've just shared that my hunch is that a lot of people listening today totally relate to what you're talking about. See this is stuff we don't talk about to other people right? But when we feel worthless the fact that you tried to take your life a couple of times says to me how powerful those lies really were. Tell me really what it was like growing up as a Hispanic kid with white parents in a white neighbourhood? Mike: It was weird. Berni: Because you've got an Italian surname right? So you're Hispanic with Italian adoptive parents, Italian surname. Boy, that must be a weird mix. Mike: Because I'm Hispanic, you know typically you're supposed to be able to speak Spanish but growing up in a white family I don't know Spanish at all. I would love to be able to communicate with them but now I'm in a white family, I don't even look like my parents at all so it's funny going around and people say, 'Are these your kids?' or stuff like that. There's a Jamaican child in our family too and she doesn't look like any of the rest of us so it's kind of hard to relate with our parents when they talk to us in certain ways and tell us about certain things. It's hard to relate because you're not their kids and you don't have the same past as them, you don't share the same grandparents, legally you do. Berni: So you kind of had one thing stacked against you after another right? Your first family didn't love you and now you're in a family that do love you but you don't look like them, you don't have the heritage they have, the names are different. People look at your family and go, 'that's weird, what's going on there'. So everything was kind of stacked against you. I heard you preach at Church a few Sundays ago, you spoke about the power of the tongue. Just want to share that passage right now from James chapter 3 because it's really sobering thing. We say things to people sometimes we don't think about them. Just listen to what God says about the power of words, the power of the tongue. James chapter 3 beginning at verse 3: If we put bits in the mouths of horses to make them obey us we guide their whole bodies. Or look at ships, though they are large that it takes strong winds to drive them yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire and the tongue is fire. It's really sobering; you know we say things and we don't think about them. I now listen to your story and it brings it right down. Here was a kid who felt worthless because he didn't fit the mould society wanted him to fit and they told you that, they peppered you with words, the kids at school gave you a hard time and there's such power in that. So what changed for you? What was the turning point from this baby who almost didn't live, to this young teenager who almost didn't live because you tried to take your life a couple of times, to the young man that I heard preaching the other morning at Church? I'm really interested, what happened? Mike: I came to Australia to do this trip with YWAM - Youth With A Mission and I came here primarily to get away from home just because I was fed up with it. Also I've always wanted to do missions and just help people that were dealing with the same kind of stuff I've dealt with. On this trip I wrote down tonnes of pages of lies, hundreds of them, that I've been believing my whole life and I took the paper, as I was reading over hundreds of lies I just realised that no matter what all these people say about me, no matter what I believe about myself, God loves me no matter what and it talks about that in Romans 8, that nothing separates us from Gods love. And so I took these papers and I stuck them in a tin can and I just burned them and as I did that the pressure was completely gone. I started believing truths that God says over me; reading the Bible, seeing what God believes about me and we need to see people through God's eyes because often it starts in my own heart and because of the hatred that I had coming towards me I started taking that out on other people and so it was a transformation I needed to make in my heart, forgiveness but then learning to be forgiven and learning to receive forgiveness. Berni: That's huge, that's like a massive turn around. And my sense is, because I had different circumstances same problem in my life, I couldn't do that for myself, it was ultimately only Christ who could come into my life and His spirit who kind of did things in my heart that I struggled to achieve but could never achieve for myself. You have that sense too? That God's sort of supernaturally been involved in all of that. Mike: Oh I know He has. It was nothing I did. God just started working in my life day after day, revealing new things to me, just infusing me with His love, showing me that He loves me no matter what. Berni: Yeah. So I'd just like to encourage anybody who's listening today who has this same "I'm a nobody, I'm not good at anything, I don't fit anywhere, I don't look right". I mean there's a list of lies, as you said you had pages of them. God is in this place … God is in this place and there's no accident that I met Mike, it's no accident that Mike's here and it's no accident that we're sitting here chatting together now. God is on your case and He wants to make a difference.

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God has a habit of wanting to speak right into the circumstances that we're travelling through here and now; the very issues that we each face in our everyday lives. Everything from dealing with difficult people … to discovering how God speaks to us; from overcoming stress … to discovering your God-given gifts and walking in the calling that God has placed on your life And that's what these daily 10 minute A Different Perspective messages are all about.

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