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Month: April 2018

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The Fire Series – Can God Use A Cold Christian?

The answer is YES! Let me show you how!

Rev 3:15-19:

15 “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. 17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.

This is a well-known verse and what is usually emphasized is that we need to be blazing hot for Jesus or that we need to avoid being lukewarm! What is usually understood is that lukewarm isn’t good enough, we need to be on fire! This automatically means that if we are cold we are not even in the race. Cold is definitely NOT where we want to be, we think! But let’s look at the passage again.

It says that God wishes that we were either cold or hot. In other words, hot is good and cold is good, it’s lukewarm that’s the issue. The analogy is to a drink. It’s either a hot cup of coffee or a cold glass of juice. Lukewarm coffee or juice? Yuck! Spit that out!

You see, Jesus is getting at the heart condition of the church. Hot or cold refers to a people that know the condition of their heart and cry out to God accordingly. The lukewarm people are pretenders, pretending that everything is fine, pretending to be righteous. They are ‘too blessed to be stressed’ and are busy putting on a self-righteous show of the perfect Christian life. They say, “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing” when in fact they are “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked.” God can’t help self-righteous pretenders and if He can’t help them, He can’t use them.

The cold Christian on the other hand knows the condition of his heart and falls on his face before God asking for repentance daily. God loves cold Christians! These meek Christians diligently seek Christ wherein is their treasure, righteousness and healing (gold, white garments, salve)!

So, if you feel a bit cold today, don’t worry, God can handle cold. Don’t be too proud to confess your doubts and fears and failures. Don’t worry about what people will think of you or say about you.  Of what account is man! Cry out to your God! He longs to hear your genuine heart cries! There is NOTHING that is beyond His love if you keep it real with Him. I’ve seen Him take my bereft and broken moments and make them beautiful over and over again!

Joyfully,

Copyright 2018, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.

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Rebels And Sycophants, Tyrants and Nice Guys

A major part of life on this planet is about how we relate to authority and how we carry authority. Our relationship with authority starts almost the moment we take our first breath. First our parents, then teachers, then bosses. Eventually, we may ourselves be in positions of authority.

To explore how we deal with authority, I have chosen four stereotypes for discussion:

  • The rebel
  • The sycophant
  • The tyrant
  • The nice guy

The rebel’s response to authority is an obstructionist one. The rebel does not like being told what to do. His strategy can range from complete insubordination to subtle undermining. He is the child who does the exact opposite of what he is told to do by his parents who are frequently called into the school on account of his misbehaviour. At work he is that trouble worker that is every boss’ nightmare. The union is his best friend and he takes every opportunity to discredit his supervisor/manager.

The sycophant on the other hand lives to please her parent or teacher or boss. She loves to be the favourite daughter or the favourite student. She fetches coffee for her boss without being asked, is lavish with her compliments and bends over backwards to meet every demand. She uses every means necessary to remain in favour with her upper line including hiding unfavourable facts. Her priority is to stay in the good books.

The tyrant is the boss that uses her authority to reinforce her own authority or the bully in school. She delights in the ability to bend others to her will. For her, authority is a tool for domination and control. The tyrant enjoys making others lives miserable by making unreasonable demands and setting impossible targets. The only consideration in the tyrant decision-making is what is favourable for herself.

The nice guy cannot bear the thought of not being liked by his children or his staff. He avoids uncomfortable discussions about poor performance and can only take disciplinary action behind the curtains of a higher-level order or clear policy infraction that forces his hand. At home, he is the parent that refers the tough decisions to his wife and spoils them behind her back.

Of course, these are caricatures of traits that may exist in smaller measures or varying combinations. For example, a tyrant boss can often be a sycophant with his boss. The question is, “What is a healthy, balanced way of relating to authority and carrying authority?” The rule I find useful in this regard and the standard to which I aspire (I do not always succeed) is to do the most good for the most number of people.

I believe that if we took this attitude when relating to those in authority over us, we would strike a happy balance between seeking our boss’ goodwill while doing all in our power to seek the best for others as well. That could mean at times standing up to our boss or refusing an instruction or bringing information to light that she may not want to hear or that casts ourselves in a bad light.

Likewise, in discharging our responsibilities as those in authority we would not seek to do harm to our staff or to pander to them. Our focus would be to help them to succeed yet not pander to them in ways that could bring harm to others or the company (all employees).

The same philosophy can be applied to parenting. We seek the highest good of our children which can mean praise or discipline as required. We also seek to parent in such a way as to produce adults that contribute to the highest good of society. One can easily see how producing self-centred or undisciplined children contravene that aim.

Let us seek to do the highest good to the most number of people in all that we do.

Joyfully,

Copyright 2018, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.

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Performance Pressure

Next month my 12-year-old daughter writes the big SEA exam for entrance into secondary school. My 16-year-old son will also write his O’Level exams around the same time. Meanwhile, at work we have been having conversations about setting more challenging goals and cultivating a high-performance culture. These days, it is more evident to me than ever before how deeply this performance culture permeates our society.

There are side-effects to this culture that reminds me of those ads for some new wonder drug that promises to change your life, but possible side effects include drowsiness, depression, nausea, dizziness and erectile dysfunction. You begin to wonder if the drug is worth it right?

Some of the side effects of a performance culture that I have observed are:

  1. Unhealthy comparison/competition
  2. Confusing ability to perform with self-worth
  3. Fear of failure

Unhealthy comparison/competition

I have children with different natural abilities and talents. One may be great at math while another may have great physical agility. One may have a superior command of the English language, while another may be good at arts and craft. I see my role as a father as facilitating the emergence of the best in each of them based on their individual potential (not their performance compared to others).

Unavoidably, that means unequal treatment. To illustrate: If I have one child who is a natural math genius and they get 95% in an exam and another who struggles with math and they get 65% in an exam, I would reward them equally. What the performance culture does is sets up a way of thinking that encourages comparison against others rather than against your own potential. So, the child who gets 95% may feel unfairly treated because he/she did much better than the other one. But that’s ok. Far worse is the child that is always held to the standards of his/her sibling. It can leave awful scars.

In business, the negative behaviours that this type of thinking often breed is unhealthy competition between peers or departments. Unhealthy meaning that individual or departmental success is prioritized above the company’s overall success. Once I meet my targets that’s all that matters!

Confusing ability to perform with self-worth

This is one that I’m particularly watchful for any signs of in my children. Too often failing to pass an exam or win a match is interpreted as a reflection on personal self-worth. It needs to be said that the top students and top athletes are not necessarily better people! So often we write-off people because they don’t have the credentials or track-record that we think is important. There are so many valuable attributes that are not generally measured!

Failing an exam does not make you a failure. Not meeting your goals does not make you a failure. The human being is more than the narrow band that society focuses on. The same culture is also in the church by the way, the indicators are just different. The church measurables are: How long do you pray? How many times do you attend church? How well do you know the bible? How long have you been married? How long have you been serving the Lord? Are your children serving the Lord? Thankfully, God does not measure us that way. We are all The Father’s children and we were all worthy enough that Jesus died for us, every one!

Fear of failure

In a paradoxical way, this high-performance culture ensures mediocrity. If you know that your boss is going to measure you by what you say you are going to achieve, then you are not going to set any outrageous goals. But don’t we want people to go after the unattainable, the outrageous? Sure we do, but we are never going to get that unless it is ok to fail.

The other way we insure against failure is by taking as few risks as possible. We are constantly taking the safest road possible because we know that we will be severally penalized for failure. The culture keeps our focus on the wrong thing; on what could go wrong, instead of what could go right!

This happens at home too. Do we parents support our children when they come with some outrageous pie-in-the-sky dream? Sometimes we stifle our children by making them play it safe. Go to school and become a doctor or a lawyer. Drop out and start a business making earrings? Don’t be crazy! However, some of our most celebrated business leaders today started out as college drop-outs with crazy ideas.

In summary, here’s my philosophy of life in answer to this prevailing culture:

  1. The only person I’m in competition with is myself. I challenge myself to grow continuously and become all that God wants me to become. I don’t want to leave unfulfilled potential on the table.
  2. I don’t have to succeed at the expense of your failure. We can all succeed together. I believe in win-win. I believe we can all be exceptional!
  3. I believe every single person is highly valuable not because of anything they have done or not done but because they were created by God. Every person has something valuable that they can add to my life and if I don’t see it, it just means I’m not looking hard enough.
  4. Failure is an opportunity to learn! I am not defined by my failures. I am not afraid of failure. I am afraid of not living life to the fullest!

Joyfully,

Copyright 2018, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.

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Granny

Today is granny’s birthday. She is gone now. None of my grandparents are alive. Granny is the only one I miss though. I often ponder why that is. She was not the one who did the most things for me. That would be grampa. He bought me my first bicycle. He made sure I got braces. He took me to get my driver’s permit. He took me for my first hot dog and milkshake and taught me to swim in Macqueripe.

My cousins and I all fight over who was granny’s favourite. It’s really no contest though; I am the eldest and clearly her favourite long before the rest arrived. 🙂 I was her tomato. But it goes to show how she made each of us feel special. We all knew that granny loved us personally. Not a generic, ‘I love my grandchildren’, kinda love but a personal appreciation and care for each individual.

No matter what, I knew that granny believed in me. It was the little things she would say, “Matik I always admired how you handled your divorce. Things didn’t work out but you made sure that XXX was well taken care of.” Or, “Mats you have a good heart and the Lord knows that.” Or if she knew I was going through a rough patch, “You gotta roll with the punches Mats.”

She worried about every one of her grandchildren and wanted to know the details of everything that was going on in our lives. I remember when I started going out at night as a teenager, no matter what time I got home, granny was up at the dining room table reading until she was sure that I had made it home safely.

Granny was special. In the weeks before she passed away, I went to visit her and some of her last words to me were, “Thank you Matik.”

“For what granny?”

“For being you.”

Thank you for being you, granny. You are my hero. I miss you but I know that you are still in my corner.

PS: I know you love flowers. These are for you.

Joyful tears,

Copyright 2018, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.