Losing


“When you are angry, don’t let that anger make you sin,”[c] and don’t stay angry all day. Don’t give the devil a way to defeat you.”

Ephesians 4:26-27


My husband has a great sense of humor and can watch the same shows and movies over and over and still belly laugh.  He’s working hard to make sure Maycee is a laugher too and hopes she’s less serious than her mama.  I often tell Mark I am laughing on the inside.  I’m just not much of an LOL(er).  

But even I chuckle a little when I watch Kevin Hart.  This summer I’ve been listening to his autobiography on an audio book.  If you’ve seen his stand-up act, you know his content and language can be inappropriate and that’s true of his book too, but the overlying messages, including forgiveness, are really positive.  These things stuck out to me the most:
  1. The ability to let things go
He describes his life in careful detail and shares his struggles.  His mom raised him alone. His older brother got into trouble so his mom became extremely strict so he would be different.  She was quite abusive as she tried to keep him in line.

He never let that or his dad’s crazy antics due to a drug addiction hold him back.  He says, "For as long as I can remember, I've had the ability to shoulder-shrug things — to just accept them, say 'OK,' and get on with my life," he writes. "The opposite of shoulder-shrugging would be to get depressed or angry and to hold on to those emotions for the rest of my life."

This sounds very similar to  Ephesians 4:31-32 “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

Ephesians was written by Paul and he wrote it to encourage Christians to always be growing in their faith and to live peacefully with others with no quarrels or divisions.  I know I could achieve both of these goals by more quickly letting go of hurt feelings and offering forgiveness more readily.
2. Laughter and Enjoying Life
He learned to share the pain from his life through humor and says, “Laughter heals all wounds, and that’s one thing that everybody shares. No matter what you’re going through, it makes you forget about your problems. I think the world should keep laughing. In life, you can choose to cry about the bull**** that happens to you or you can choose to laugh about it. I choose laughter.”

He describes how early in his career he developed and wrote a sitcom based on his crazy family and it got picked up by ABC. They flew him to NYC to help promote it at a weekend event.  He was ecstatic and spent his own money to fly the rest of the cast there. Right before his turn on stage he was told that ABC passed on the show and picked up a different one.  He was crushed.  Everyone around him was upset and saying this shouldn’t have happened, what an awful way to handle things, and how they were going to get to the bottom of it.

Within a few minutes, he decided he couldn’t change it  by being mad or mopey.  He decided to let it go and enjoy the weekend.  The rest of the crew flew home, but he stayed and had a great time.  Again, he says it was because of his ability to shoulder shrug things. Other people saw how he handled it and I’m sure that spoke volumes. Eventually ABC picked his show back up, but it wasn't his big break.  It seemed like a huge deal to him at the time, but the way he handled himself mattered so much more in the long run.

Proverbs 17:22(NIV) A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.


3. Persistence
He kept trying when he failed and says it’s why he becomes so successful,” More than anything, my willingness to be persistent is responsible for the success I've had. My mindset is: It's okay to fail, but it's not okay to quit. Struggle, rejection, failure, and doubt break most people. Your goal is to learn from these challenges without letting them diminish your motivation. The secret to accomplishing this is simple: Let yourself be driven by your will to succeed rather than your fear of not succeeding.”

We all deal with the things he dealt with-struggle, rejection, failure, and doubt.   Personally, when I deal with them, I'm often upset with someone else for being part of the problem.  Offering forgiveness and surrendering those feelings is how to move on from them. As Christians, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus when we face hard times brings glory to Him.

Hebrews 12:1-2(CEB) says, So then let’s also run the race that is laid out in front of us, since we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. Let’s throw off any extra baggage, get rid of the sin that trips us up, and fix our eyes on Jesus, faith’s pioneer and perfecter. He endured the cross, ignoring the shame, for the sake of the joy that was laid out in front of him, and sat down at the right side of God’s throne.

4. Learning
His thoughts on learning are similar to what my friends and I have said to each other.  
“Every experience you have is a gift created to teach you a lesson. If you learn and implement that lesson in your life, then you get to receive the next gift. If you don't learn from it, then that same lesson will keep coming back to you, over and over, until you die standing in the exact same spot where you started, blaming others for something you should have done yourself long ago. In this world, there is nothing but life lessons. Pay attention to them and the world will open itself up to you.”

I find it fascinating how we can all be so different and so similar.  We all have the same emotions and are imperfect. We all need grace and forgiveness and need to give it to others too.  I pray we can all grow in our faith a little each day by offering kindness and forgiveness a bit quicker.   “Oh Father, give me grace to forgive them, 'Cause I feel like the one losin'”

Say, we think pains owed apologies and then it’ll stop
Truth be told it doesn’t matter if they’re sorry or not
Freedom comes when we surrender to the sound
Of mercy and Your grace
Father, send Your angels down

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