IMAGINE THAT
EVERYONE IS HERE TO TEACH YOU SOMETHING
Psalm
111:10
“The fear
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding
have all those who do His commandments; His praise endures forever.”
“The fear
of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and
instruction.”
“A wise son
accepts his father’s discipline, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.”
“Listen to
your father who begot you, and do not despise your mother when she is old. Buy truth, and do not sell it, get wisdom and
instruction and understanding.”
The title suggests that
you can put into practice some self-improvement. Perhaps the disrespectful teenager is here to
teach you about patience and the punk rocker might be here to teach you to be
less judgmental.
Your job is to try to determine what the people in your
life are trying to teach you. You’ll
find that if you do this, you’ll be far less annoyed, bothered, and frustrated
by the actions and imperfections of other people. Often, once you discover what someone is
trying to teach you, it’s easy to let go of your frustration.
FOR EXAMPLE:
instead of being frustrated by the slow moving sales person, ask
yourself what you can learn from him.
Maybe you need to learn about compassion – how hard it would be to have
a job that you don’t like. Or perhaps
you can learn a little more about being patient. Standing in line is an excellent opportunity
to break your habit of feeling impatient.
Problems happen in everyone’s life. However, the truth is,
the amount of stress we feel has more to do with how we relate to our problems
than it does with the problems themselves.
What we learn from these problems is what makes us mature people.
Problems come in many shapes, sizes, and degrees of
seriousness, but all have one thing in common:
They present us with something that we wish were different. However, the real truth is that when we
accept our problems as an inevitable part of life, when we look at them as
potential teachers, it’s as if a weight has been lifted off our shoulders. Take a certain problem in you life and ask
yourself what valuable lesson this problem might teach you. When you hold your problems in this way, they
soften and remember: Most problems
aren’t the emergencies we think they are.
And usually, once we learn what we need to learn, they begin to go away.
One easy way to deal with everyday stresses is to ask yourself: “How much
will this matter one year from now?”
Then, you can also ask yourself:
“How will this affect me in eternity.”
If we keep our minds on what comes beyond this life, this life doesn’t
quite hold the impact that it has been holding right now.
Take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and say: “Life is not an emergency.” You will live longer and you will be
wiser when you allow others to teach you (whether
they know it or not.)
