I recently watched a video my buddy Hughbiquitous posted in his blog. It’s a video of a great lecture given by Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University computer-science professor, terminally ill cancer patient, and pioneer in VR. The one quote I wrote down was not from Randy himself, but from one of his mentors. It’s regarding Randy’s arrogance at the time of the conversation:
“It’s such a shame people perceive you this way, because it will limit what you can accomplish in life.”
I believe everyone has a this. I think I have a pretty good handle on mine, I mean knowing it (and that’s half the battle). My this gets smaller as time goes on, but only by the grace of God. This is where good friends come into play. God uses those close to you as encouragers and critics. Who else will tell you when you are a bonehead and spur you on at the same time? Friends have the earned privilege to give you the feedback you need to hear. As a matter of fact, it is their responsibility. I have a great example of this in real life.
In trying to get a sound system setup for a youth retreat, I was under a time constraint and some pressure (mostly self imposed) to get it working. As you could guess, things weren’t going right and I started to lose my cool rapidly. So here I am, standing in the front of the room yelling and getting visibly frustrated. At that moment, my friend and mentor walked up behind me and whispered in my ear, “Do you think Jesus would handle the situation this way?” It was like hitting the reset button on a video game. I am grateful to this day for my friend taking the responsibility that comes with our privilege of our friendship to set me straight that day.
May we see God’s face in the friends He blesses us with by His grace. And maybe we will see ourselves clearer in the process.
