GOD

HAS GIVEN ME SOMETHING


TO OFFER





I want to share some recent thoughts with you. I know that there are some who will hear this and consider it an arrogant boast. Others may hear some sentimental mush of pretended humility. I can't help that either. I consider this as simple reporting of genuine understanding. I hope you can hear it that way. I'm really trying to expose a side of Christian life that doesn't get much airtime.

Christianity could be likened to a big AA group. We tell each other our experiences. And that helps us reinforce and stay aware of the positive aspects of our Christian walk. Most Christians call this a testimony.

I only know that one day I realized that some of my actions were having a major effect on people. Some folks were basing some pretty important actions on something I had said. I wondered if that had ever happened before. So I started looking around in my past history. I thought back over some major areas of my life to verify my behavior with other people. I was trying to answer the question; have I changed. Something was different.

After some thought, I knew that it wasn't really me that had influenced others. I acknowledged that I was merely a conduit in the process. This conclusion led me to the understanding that it was a change of focus that had resulted in the sublime feeling of having been involved in someone's enlightenment.

I've done a lot of high profile things: teaching, summer recreation, acting, drove a Chicago city bus, my involvement with The Redwood Players Community Theatre. I've held many positions of speaker or director or teacher. There have certainly been many opportunities for people to take what I was saying to heart. Even at the lowest level of a boy acting on what I tell him is the best way to kick a football, the process is the same. So, it wasn't a lack of opportunity. What else was there? My product.

Then I had to ask: Was my "product" of worth? Of what real consequence were my actions? I guess there's no sure way to know that. But the lack of feedback indicates that what I was offering was probably no better than the norm. My students probably had many teachers that were as "nice" as Mr. Flaws or as good a teacher.. My next question had been answered.

Did I have that to offer different than most folks? Evidently not. If my offering was great, most everyone else's must've been great, too. The first time you have steak at a classy dinner house might be special, but when every other restaurant is a steak house, even the juiciest filet cannot provide that first thrill. That seemed to take care of the different settings for a major portion of my life. So I moved on the next principle force in the picture, me, still looking for that change.

And I asked: Have I fundamentally changed? I feel like my attitude and actions regarding the needs of others are the same as before I came to know of God's reality. I've always been pretty easy going. One teacher told me that they liked it when I subbed for the little kids 'cuz I was "so unflappable."

I'm sure I offered what there was within me. But again, not more than the same things that most others already knew.

Were my offerings retained? Retainable! ! ? We only retain that which we deem important. Our conclusion of it's importance will drive us to enough study of validating evidence, that the mere repetition of addressing the subject will burn the memory deep. Retained. It looks like my offerings weren't retained. Not important enough to be reviewed or practiced.

I spent thousands of hours working in the Redwood Players. For all those years I was the only one who could devote that much time to a very time consuming endeavor. Most others had jobs and lives outside the Redwood Playhouse. I told you that some of this would sound arrogant. But the simple fact is that my involvement was essential to the continuance of the Redwood Players for nine years. But don't think that I never was thanked or shown appreciation for the work I did. There was enough of that going on. We were all neighbors and we got along very well; for a bunch of actors. But you know what, despite all the energy that I put into the RP, no one ever said, " you changed my life."

I taught school for fifteen years. No one ever said you changed my life.

I've received the thanks I deserved for favors done for friends. Not one of them said you changed my life.

I had a friend that claims I saved his life. Had told many others, most of whom I don't know, how I saved his life. He has never said, "You changed my life."

Why this dearth of validation for my actions? Didn't I give of myself above the expected continually? Weren't my actions worthwhile? Yes, they were, but not to the point of really touching people's lives.

Were all my efforts so superficial as to not make a lasting impact on those around me?

I had nothing of Real value to offer; outside of the quibble about being a good example for the children I taught. I don't know how I impacted them. None of them ever said you changed my life.

Now I have strangers, people from across the world initiating contact with me to avow that something I have produced has changed their lives.

I don't feel I've changed. But people's response to my output has certainly changed.

I have engaged in writing before. A radio play, some personal essays through the Famous Writers School. A little poetry. But nothing very well organized, or even thought would be offered publicly, more than airing the radio show.

Now my writing is called good by one publisher who claimed that only twenty percent of the MSS they receive are as well written as mine. I have some people who have been so taken with my writing that they have purchased many copies of my book and gifted them to others. I have a long file of names of folks who have voluntarily offered thanks and praise for my internet offerings. And people from Australia to Japan have copies of my book of essays.

And some have said you changed my life.

If I haven't changed, what has? The focus of my output.

My output now is of deeper significance than before. It's Truth. It's Integrity. It's Light. It's Reality. It's Giving. It's God.

Side Bar:

It's humiliating to hear, "You changed my life." From my personal perspective, in relation to God, I see,

God has given me something to offer.

I don't feel that the volume of my output is substantially up or down from before my focus landed on God. I always was somewhat of a giver. But my gifts were never important enough to vitally impact others. And I take this as a proof of God's reality, and His working

I must be dealing in something of deep significance to illicit the response of opening someone's eyes to the Truth, to Change someone's life. What other reason can be offered to explain this wondrous turn of events? God must be Real-ity. None of my old stuff touched people's lives.

God has given me something to offer. That's what's in store for anyone who comes to God. There is an added dimension of meaning to your life. And God has further confirmed His reality to me by allowing me to see the effect of the Truth when people hear it.

Some folks will never know the sublimity of having someone tell them that they have touched their lives.

Sad.

You don't believe in God? OK, what have you got to offer?




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