The People Factor: How Building Great Relationships and Ending Bad Ones Unlocks Your God-Given Purpose (9 page)

The story has lots of lessons in it, but the one I want you to notice right now is this: Judas’s bad motive overtook the good influences of people around him. He was one of the disciples; he spent a lot of time around a group of men who certainly were not perfect, but they were sold out to Jesus. They were hungry for the things of God, and they dearly loved and deeply respected His Son. They gave up everything to follow Him. But the positive influence of eleven devoted disciples could not quench the bad motive in Judas. Even significant exposure to the Son of God Himself didn’t cause Judas to let go of his wrong motives and get his heart right. First Corinthians 15:33 summarizes my point: “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’ ” This is a fact of life and relationships:
Bad
tends to out-influence
good
. Everything bad begins with wrong motives.

Trying to assess a person’s motives is not easy. It can take time and it requires asking questions. But you must get to the truth. Being associated with a person of impure motives can ruin your life, but being in a relationship with someone who has a pure heart and right motives can be one of the best things ever to happen to you.

A Passionate, Consistent Pursuit of Excellence

If you want to realize God’s best for your life and have His best in your relationships, then you must launch out on a lifelong pursuit of excellence and surround yourself with people who hold the same high standards. You need to be around people who challenge you to grow and who refuse to allow you to settle for mediocrity. Surround yourself with others who have sold out to excellence. This is part of having integrity.

Stay away from mediocre people who are satisfied with who they are, where they are, and what they are doing. A casual or common attitude toward life will lead you to a place of disappointment and defeat. Mediocrity is an infectious, contagious disease that will penetrate deep into the crevices of your life and kill any desire for personal improvement. Mediocre people will halt the progress you have made; they will disguise themselves by saying all the right words, but ultimately they are in your life to hinder your future. So require excellence from the people with whom you associate. Ask them to live extraordinary lives and to demand the same of you.

Excellence is a quality that almost always earns respect, and
excellent
is definitely an adjective people want used when they are being described. But wanting excellence is altogether different from achieving excellence. People often say they want excellence in their lives, but they stop pursuing it because the cost is too great. They are not willing to pay the price to obtain the prize. They become discouraged and quit when they realize that excellence requires daily striving for improvement. Excellence demands continual, passionate effort. It is a goal you have to go after all the time. Yes, it takes time and energy, but it is worth the work. It is the only way to guarantee a consistent level of integrity in your life. Going after excellence is easier when you are not alone in the
pursuit. Encourage yourself to pursue excellence every day. Make sure the people you relate to are also pursuing it personally and can encourage you as you seek it. That fulfills the biblical purpose of relationships, which is to add value to your life and to the world around you. Excellence certainly adds value!

H
OW TO
R
ECOGNIZE
I
NTEGRITY

I hope you have realized the absolute necessity of requiring integrity from the people with whom you are in relationship. Sometimes when I teach on this subject, people say, “Isn’t it arrogant to require integrity from others? Shouldn’t we just accept them as they are and walk through life in relationship with them anyway?”

My answer is this: The kind of requirements you place upon others reveals the kind of person you are. You have to require integrity from those with whom you relate. If you do not, you will end up involved with the wrong people. To try to understand someone’s integrity in this way is not arrogant; it simply ensures that the relationship will not be a hindrance or a waste of time. The Bible calls us to love one another. We can love people who do not have integrity, but we cannot allow ourselves to walk closely with them in purposeful relationships.

You can gain insight into a person’s integrity by asking some of these specific questions designed to reveal character:

• What is the purpose of this person’s life?

• Who is this person trying to please?

• What motivates and drives this person? Are his or her motives pure?

• What standards and values does this person hold?

• To whom is this person committed?

• Does this person tell the truth? Is he or she as honest about the little things in life as about the big things?

• Is this person fiercely unwilling to compromise his or her integrity?

• Does this person set personal high standards and ask others to set high standards as well?

One of the spiritual realities of relationships is this: when God decides to bless you or do something wonderful in you or through you, the enemy assigns people to stop you. This is why understanding agreement and integrity is so important.

You must be able to recognize the individuals God has brought or wants to bring into your life versus the people the enemy sends to you. Failure to discern the difference can destroy your life, but being able to identify those God sends and relate to them in the right way is one of the best things you could ever do for yourself. It will not only bring you a high degree of personal fulfillment; it will enable you to do what God has created and destined you to do, and it will greatly benefit the people and the world around you.

RELATIONSHIP REMINDERS

• Take time to find out whether you are in agreement with a person regarding values and priorities before entering into a relationship.

• Don’t waste your time trying to build relationships with people with whom you are not in agreement about the important issues in life.

• Require integrity from the people with whom you are in relationships.

• Learn to look past a person’s charisma, abilities, or position in life, and do not allow these superficial things to cause you to think integrity is not important.

• Seek these four qualities in a potential friend, spouse, or significant business associate: an unwavering commitment to truth; an absolute refusal to compromise; a complete dedication to pure motives; and the passionate, consistent pursuit of excellence.

• Don’t shortchange yourself by accepting anything less than integrity from people with whom you choose to share your life.

RAISING YOUR RELATIONAL IQ

1. What are the primary values in your life? What are your top priorities? What are the nonnegotiable character traits you need in friends and associates?

2. Think about your closest relationships. In each case, are you and the other person in agreement about important issues such as values, beliefs, and matters of character?

3. Why is agreement on major issues important in your life?

4. Who are the people in your life who operate with the highest levels of integrity? In what ways have they proven their integrity to you?

5. In the section titled “How to Recognize Integrity” I mentioned some questions designed to help you
assess character in others. These questions would also be good for you to answer for yourself as you continue to develop greater character and integrity. Why not do so now?

4

Release Your Past to Embrace Your Future

T
HE
L
AW OF
L
ETTING
G
O

IF YOU HAVE EVER HEARD THE UNMISTAKABLE voice of James Earl Jones, you probably cannot forget it. Perhaps the most powerful statement he has ever uttered on stage or screen is this simple, four-word exhortation:
Remember who you are.

This line comes from the poignant and joyful musical
The Lion King.
In the story, the young lion cub Simba is destined for greatness, but he struggles with fear in the face of tremendous threats and challenges along the way. Simba is devastated, frightened, and angry when his father, Mufasa, is killed. He blames himself for a while, until he comes to understand differently. At a crucial point on his journey, Mufasa’s voice speaks to him and says, “Remember who you are.” This helps Simba deal with his pain and he goes on to fulfill his destiny and become a great leader.

Sometimes, remembering who you are is easier said than done. All kinds of factors and influences shape our understanding of our
identities, many of them beyond our control. Some things that contribute to our self-images are deeply rooted in our past experiences and relationships. Though the actual words or events that impacted us lie buried in our personal histories, they continue to affect us negatively. They hinder the ability to know and remember who we really are and thwart our efforts to give ourselves fully to the people and relationships God has ordained for our good.

As you begin this chapter, I want you to know that your past does not define you. It may have impacted you, but it does not dictate your present or your future. It may be a reality and a painful memory, but it can be healed and reconciled. It does not have to bind you to its pain or its shame. You can find out who you really are, gain strength to put the past behind you, and move forward into a great life and great relationships.

I want you to know that your past does not define you. It may have impacted you, but it does not dictate your present or your future.

A M
AN
Y
OU
M
AY
R
ELATE
T
O

One of the stories of Scripture nearest and dearest to my heart is the tale of a man who is rarely mentioned. I have never seen his picture in a Bible storybook or heard rousing, inspirational sermons based on his life. But to me, he is one of our faith’s great tragic heroes. And he is a man whose life is full of crucial lessons about our relationships with others and with ourselves.

This little-known man’s name is Jephthah, and you can read
about him in Judges 11 and 12. From the very beginning of his life, certain unfortunate realities worked against Jephthah, especially in his relationships with his brothers. Though Jephthah’s story happened long ago in a place you may have never heard of, you may know from personal experience the struggles he endured and the suffering he faced. He is a symbol of everyone who struggles with strained relationships in the present and is headed for troubled personal and professional alliances in the future because of painful relationships in their pasts.

Jephthah was the son of a distinguished man named Gilead, but he was also the son of a prostitute. In a moment of weakness and terrible judgment, his father visited the harlot, resulting in Jephthah’s birth. In contrast, his brothers were all true sons of Gilead and his wife. They did not carry the stigma of being conceived outside the covenant of marriage, and they had no use for Jephthah, who bore the invisible label “Illegitimate.” The Bible clearly states that the brothers drove Jephthah away from them, saying, “You are not going to get any inheritance in our family . . .
because you are the son of another woman
” (Judg. 11:2, emphasis added).

No doubt Jephthah was a disturbing reminder of Gilead’s infidelity and of the pain and shame his actions caused the family. He was a walking representation of Gilead at his worst, and every time anyone in the family looked at Jephthah, they remembered on some level, consciously or unconsciously, the embarrassing reason for his existence.

The fact that Jephthah’s mother was a prostitute leads us to believe she came from a non-Hebrew race or culture because Mosaic Law strictly prohibited prostitution. Because Jepthah’s ethnicity was mixed and his brothers were “pure” Israelites, Jephthah was different. Just as certain prejudices unfortunately exist today among various ethnic groups all over the world, biases and unfair judgments
were also common in Jephthah’s time. No doubt he endured whispers, condescending looks, and perhaps unsavory comments from society in general—and probably worse from his brothers.

The realities that separated Jephthah from the rest of his family—the shame of his conception and birth and the strong possibility that he was racially mixed instead of 100 percent Hebrew—may have given his brothers reason to fear he would follow in the ignoble footsteps of his father, inheriting his weaknesses instead of his strengths. We do not know whether Jephthah ever actually gave them reason to believe he would grow up to be dishonorable or not, but I think the possibility is strong that they feared such an outcome. I know about this dynamic from personal experience.

My parents divorced when I was six months old. Growing up I became aware that my father’s Gilead-like behavior caused the separation. The hurt and betrayal of his infidelity led my mother to divorce him. While my father and I share the same name, my mother was determined that I would become a different kind of person than my father. In fact, she often said to me, “I don’t want you to be like your father!”

During my childhood, her comment did not really bother me, but as I became more mature and began to develop a relationship with my father, those words began to sting more and more. I realized that those comments came from a place inside my mother, a place of lingering hurt and resentment toward my father. Because my father and I have a strong physical resemblance and share the same name of Van Moody, my mother was afraid I would become just like he was.

The truth about my story is that I did not grow up to be like my father. I did not inherit his particular weaknesses. I know that Jephthah, like me, may have been destined never to make the same mistakes Gilead made, but his family did not know that. They, like
my mother, could have easily been afraid this young man would grow up to hurt himself and embarrass the family by behaving as his father did.

I cannot speak for Jephthah’s brothers; nor can I know for certain the details of the ways they treated him or thought of him. But I do know that certain things about him, things beyond his control, so bothered them that they banished him from their family and cut off his inheritance. This tells me there was serious trouble!