The Difference
I am often asked what the big difference is between those who make it and those who do not. I have finally come up with the answer. In the second chapter of first Chronicles, there is a story about how the Philistines pursued King Saul and the enemy archers wounded him, but in the end, he fell upon his own sword. Here is the difference: winners think the thing that will end it for them, if it ever ends, is them; they know it will not be what somebody else does, but it is in the end, what they do to themselves; they believe in cause and effect. And the rest who don't make it believe that it is not them that causes the end but that somehow something outside of them, such as luck, the economy, the market, that outside something will dictate where they go. Remember that the archers wounded Saul, but they did not kill him; it was his own actions: he threw himself on the sword. Sail's suicide started long before the Philistines were pursuing him.
First, what if you wanted something so badly that you pursued it exclusively and you did not also desire any other compatible thing? Martin Luther King, Jr., was organizing a march, and the town authorities said, "If you do that march, we are going to beat you with clubs, turn water hoses on you, and let attack dogs lose on you." He replied, "After you are done, I am going to love you." He wanted what he wanted, peaceful coexistence, so badly that he would not allow something incompatible with peace,hate, into his mind. Along the same lines, Saul was anointed to serve the Israelites, to be their King, to do the best he could for them. But he was so concerned and intimidated by his predecessor, King David, that he could not serve, because all he wanted to do then was to find and kill David. What he did not realize is that, when you have the mission to destroy another man, you should dig two graves.
What is it that you want above all else? Is it a close family, personal health, being joy filled? Then, want it exclusively, and you will attain it. Get rid of those things that are incompatible with what you want. Most people's heads are like a big mixed salad, and then the people cannot figure out why they did not get what they wanted. But they did not want it exclusively; they wanted it with comfort or handed to them without work and had incompatible thoughts in their heads.
Second, I have watched athletes; specifically, hockey players in the NHL come in from a shift on the ice and say, “I am exhausted.” When I was working with the Pittsburgh Penguins, I watched the players come off the ice, exhausted like they could not go on, and then a player scored. At this point I watched the energy change and the team immediately scored again. I went to one of the players, Jaromir Jagr, and asked, “How are you exhausted and then no longer exhausted?” He said, “That happens all the time in hockey. It is like someone scores and you feel like the game just started.” Here is the answer: the spirit does not get tired. When the team scored, there was a transfer from one energy reserve, the physical, to another, the spiritual, and the spirit does not get tired. Likewise, I have a friend who beat cancer and was given weeks to live and he beat it. I asked him how he did it, and he said, "I could not envision telling my wife and children goodbye." He foug
ht the physical disease on the spiritual.
When the Holy Spirit anointed Saul to be King, he led, he had a great vision in mind, and it stayed on the level of the spirit because it was about others, the Israelites, and the kingdom. But when David started to gain favor, everything became about Saul and losing the Kingdom. It was his own personal agenda, not that of something higher or other than himself, the motivation left the spirit and now the motivation was on the physical plane and that point was the beginning of his end.
When I was in New York City, working with people impacted by 9/11 a short time after the attacks, nothing got to me more than going in and working with and talking to the firefighters. Here was a group of people willing to run into a building, to risk everything for people they did not even know. That thought broke me into tears. Couldn’t you and I then give and sacrifice for people we do know? How did they do this giving with all this courage? They did it because giving and risking on that level is an act of the spirit. That spirit is what left Saul; his reign became about the flesh, specifically his and not the spirit.
Quit allowing yourself to say it is the market, the economy, my teenage kids, the weather or whatever. In the end it will be what you do to you which will matter. What others do to you is really insignificant and can only wound you but not destroy you. The only one who can destroy you is you. If you believe others and outside influences can do you in, you are doomed to be done in. Do what you do on the level of the spirit, do it because you believe in what you are doing, because it helps others, because your family will be blessed by it. And remember that the spirit does not get tired.
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