We’ve all lived long enough to pick up helpful tidbits. Often these are lessons that would have kept our younger selves from making not-so-great choices. Or maybe they’re experiences granted by age that can help someone else get to where you are faster. The wisdom I’ve learned from others below can accomplish both of the above, but I chose these particular 5 tidbits for an additional benefit.
They don’t just avoid mistakes or streamline progress; they unlock your potential to truly change the world. I’ve seen them do so in many people, and also they’ve transformed me from being insecurely frightened to impactfully fulfilled.
Who knows? Maybe they’ll unlock something beautiful in you as well…
1. The only person who could possibly have the knowledge, authority, and experience to know what is best for you is your Creator.
Not you, and certainly not anyone else. Our understanding of ourselves and others is so laughably incomplete that our perceptions and reactions have a far greater chance of being wrong than right. But when our goal is pleasing God instead of humans, we’re both giving our attention to who deserves it most and welcoming our greatest Ally to leverage his complete knowledge for our best. Take his words seriously. Spend time understanding all of his heart (not just the easy or popular bits). Subordinate other opinions to his. Our way is rarely the best way (Isaiah 48:17-22).
2. Confirmation bias is one of our greatest enemies. It keeps you from thinking toward personal growth, then it keeps you from acting toward personal growth.
Surrounding ourselves with groups, media, education, and echo chambers that already agree with us is a complete waste of time (and often money). They give you nothing you didn’t already have, and they imprison you in the impossible notion that your understanding of the world is too perfect to improve. Most harmfully, they make us too angry with or too alienated from “the bad guys” to get enough help to actually fix anything. And the proof is all around us, isn’t it?
3. Criticism is always opportunity, no matter how it’s delivered.
Man, this is a tough one for me, but it’s true. No matter what criticism I receive, I’ve learned to go back and revisit it again, even if it takes me a few days. Or weeks, in some cases. Either there’s truth I can find in criticism that can grow me, or I can honestly confirm a lack of truth in it that can validate my status quo. The only way a critique or judgment beats you is if you suffer it without benefiting from it.
4. Intelligence is knowledge that still sacrifices itself to feelings and opinions. Wisdom is knowledge that rules over and rehabilitates feelings and opinions.
Emotions have no ability or authority to determine what is actually true. They are inconsistent, easily abused, and far more influenced by lies and manipulations (often self-inflicted) than facts. And subservience to them has been catastrophic. Think about it. Almost every sin that’s ever happened can be described as someone doing what they feel should be true instead of what they know is true. Emotions are beautiful when they help us enjoy truth, not when they illegitimately try to rewrite it.
5. Insecurity kills.
This is essentially a summary of the above. If we believe any voice from within or without that tells us we’re worthless, powerless, or unloved, we kill our own potential. And when what we could accomplish in this world dies, so do all of those you were desperately needed for.
And when we’re too insecure to incorporate valid aspects of an opposing position (even if that validity is infrequent), we assume enemies where there are friends and friends where there are manipulators.
And when our insecure pride rages at, runs from, or too quickly rejects criticism, we let it beat us by never letting it grow us. If we’re not perfect, then our own knowledge and reactions haven’t been enough. We need input from the outside, even if we have to search for the pearls amidst the swine.
And finally, when we’re so insecure that we’d rather live in a crumbling house of emotions than on a stable foundation of facts, we only perpetuate fear, stress, and anger. Yeah, the truth can be hard, but that’s usually because we let our feelings reign so long that we got on the wrong side of truth. Admitting the truth and growing to the point where it is once again your friend is always better than frantically pretending your feelings are a less destructive guide.
Yeah, I know. These are not warm-fuzzy, Hallmark-card inspirations that only last as long as the card does. Instead, they’re observations that turn failures into fruit, badness into beauty, and hurt people into heroes! Are any of them helpful to you?
If you’d like to read more about how God himself turns badness into beauty, check out the last chapter of Booklet 5 in my free Healing Hereafter ebook series. Just two clicks away right here! And if you’d like to join God in being a healing hero, get the most bang for your buck doing that with our charity partner Bless BIG. Neither I nor they get anything from it; 100% of what you give goes to the cause you choose in crazy impactful ways!
