Jolt!, Phil Cooke [reading women txt] 📗

he had invested years into and had built from obscurity to being one of the leading churches in the city.

It was a difficult and embarrassing time for the young pastor, so much so that he could not bring himself to forgive that church member or the church board. Everywhere he went he talked about how he had been cheated. He brought it up at family gatherings, business meetings, and other events. After a while, people got tired of hearing about it. It was consuming the pastor’s life. He pastored other churches, but they soon tired of his unrelenting stories of how the previous church had cheated him and tried to destroy his ministry. Before long, churches stopped interviewing him because he simply would not let up. Bitterness controlled every aspect of his life.

Eventually he retired, never having accomplished his potential in the pulpit. His ministry was crippled, and his life came to very little because he refused to forgive. In essence, the pastor had not only been cheated by that church member years before, but worse, had allowed the church member’s act—however wrong—to control the rest of his life.

Which is worse? Suffering abuse at the hands of someone in the past or allowing that incident to destroy the rest of your life?

In order to move forward, you have to let go and be at peace with your past.

Some think it’s holding on that makes one strong; sometimes it’s letting go.

—SYLVIA ROBINSON, VOCALIST

Is it hard? Of course it is. It may be one of the most difficult things you’ll have to do in your life.

At the Apollo One monument at Cape Canaveral, Florida, there’s an inscription that reads: Ad astra per aspera. Translated, it means: “A rough road leads to the stars.”

Sometimes I think reaching the moon is a piece of cake compared to the difficulty some people have with change.

THE FOUR KEYS TO MOVING ON

In my experience, there are four important keys to getting past your hurt, brokenness, and failure and moving forward. Throughout the book we’ll discuss each in detail.

Key #1: Realize the benefit.

Once you face what happened and acknowledge the damage it’s cost your life, you have to realize the incredible benefit of forgiving the offender(s) and moving on with your life. Letting it go and looking forward will allow you to focus on the future and begin making positive changes in your life.

Key #2: Learn to live with ambiguity.

There are no easy answers. If there were, life would be great, we’d never face any challenges, and the future would be rosy. To change means to face things we’ve never seen, visit places we’ve never visited, and encounter the unknown. It means a spiritual quest as much as an intellectual one.

But most people prefer easy answers. Just visit a typical bookstore and check out the self-help section. The shelves are filled with titles that feature easy steps to financial achievement, trouble-free keys to success, and simple strategies for health, wellness, and fulfillment in life. Most business and even religious books aren’t much different.

But life is hard. And somewhere deep inside, you know that all those simplistic approaches to life just don’t work—especially for the long haul.

» SUCCESS IN LIFE IS MORE ABOUT ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS AND MAKING THE TOUGH JOURNEY.

Don’t feel that just because life is difficult, you’re not on the right path. An old Southern preacher said, “If you don’t come face-to-face with the devil sometimes, then you must be going the same direction he is.”

Key #3: Expect to lose some friends.

The moment your life starts to change, someone—somewhere—won’t like it. Chances are, some of your closest friends are people who will never change and don’t like people who do. Your decision to change doesn’t mean others around you will do the same. But you have to be committed to growing, expanding your knowledge and experience, and moving to the next level in life. I’ve discovered that when some of your friends decide against making the journey, you’ll be more than compensated by others you’ll meet along the way—people who have the same interests and goals and who want to make a difference.

» LOVE YOUR FRIENDS AND RESPECT THEM, BUT NEVER ABANDON YOUR DREAMS BECAUSE YOUR FRIENDS LACK THE VISION TO JOIN YOU.

Key #4: Start with a clean slate when it comes to “how.”

Forget how you’ve done things in the past and open yourself up to new possibilities and ideas. It’s amazing, but I still encounter the well-worn phrase “But we’ve always done it this way.” So many people are locked into old ways of thinking, tired methods, and useless techniques that it’s almost impossible to get them to see the possibilities of the new.

I’m often brought into an organization facing serious challenges, only to be limited by their frustrating desire to continue old ways of thinking. The truth is, if the old way of thinking worked, why would they need me? And yet they persist in doing the same thing(s) in the same way(s) but wanting different results.

It’s ultimately about insecurity, and I could write an entire book on that issue alone. I’ve discovered that when faced with the possibility of change or a new way of doing things, people react in two different ways. Secure people react with excitement and anticipation. But insecure people react with fear and hesitation. Insecure people are the ones who drag their feet, “forget” to do things they’ve been asked to do, subvert meetings, and figure out a million other ways to sabotage the process.

Perhaps you were told that you’d never make it, you don’t have what it takes, or you’d never amount to anything. Whoever told you that had no idea of all your capabilities, because no one can know the full potential or the full range of possibilities in another human being, and no one can tell for certain where your limits are or how far you can reach.

You may believe in God or be an atheist or an agnostic. But