So there I was sitting in the blue “pew chair,” in an over sized office room full of wide eyed folks hearing about all the benefits of Dale Carnegie training, and the course we were about to embark on for the next 12 weeks. “Here we go again,” I was thinking. Throughout my ministry, and in the course of life I have sat through so many seminars, classes, courses, conferences, sermons… . . .lectures. I was excited to be there. I had always wanted to take the course. But I was somewhat disappointed when I sat down and realized…this was just another class. Then someone said it. “This class will change your life.”
I lost all of what was said at that moment. Stuck on those words. How many times have the headlines of life read “This will change your life.” The news reporter promises the story that “will change your life.” The class promotions said, “This will change your life!” The conference host promises, “This conference will change your life!” The church promises “The message that will change your life!” We hear the phrase often. That promise of life change. It sounds exciting! It sounds positive! It sounds like amazing growth. Yet, unless its cancer, a death, Hitler or some negative change, experience has shown us, and told us that, that promise, always ends up falling short.
The phrase, “This will change your life” gets racked up there on the shelf with the overused and over stimulated power word advertising that has become common place talk. We could shelf it with the word “Awesome.” Today everything is so “Awesome” that nothing truely is “Awesome.” I used to get excited by the word Awesome…but now there is no Awe. My blood used to get pumping at the phrase “life change!” I was excited, and looking forward to what was coming because everything was going to be better now!
But, honestly, It’s not something that gets my blood going and pumped up anymore. So when I herd those words… “here we go again” was all that it said to me. Another class. “I’m sure ill get something out of it…but life change…I’ve herd that before.”
Now I sit 13 weeks later. My wife Kari loves me more. My children have a better dad. The people I work with have a better friend, a better co-worker, and a better leader in me. I have grown up. I have learned how to keep the 2nd greatest commandment from people who didn’t even know they were teaching it to me. Was it life changing…and for the better. Absolutely! and I meen that in an ”absolute” kind of way!
Thank you Allison, Thank you John, (the Carnegie instructors) for teaching me to love people more in a practical way.
In Matthew 22:37-40 (NIV) it says,
“Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”“
