11 Jun What’s Your Story: What Does God Want To Hear From You After You Die?
“You Deserve To Live A Great Life!”
My first car was a 1951 blue Chevy coupe. It really wasn’t mine outright; I shared it as part of a joint partnership with my mom. Basically, I could use it only when she did not need it. At the time I was dating a girl named Christine, a fellow senior student at New Brunswick High School. Every week, I looked forward to Saturday night when I would have the car and would be able to take Christine out for a date: typically a movie, pizza at Mel’s Restaurant on Route 27, and then finding a place to park and make out for a while.
The only hitch in this story was that my car had a very strong tendency to lean to the left. The lean was due to a car accident incurred by a previous owner. The front end was permanently out of alignment, a structural condition that required me to continually pull the steering wheel to the right. If you didn’t correct for the pull in this way, the car would simply drive in counterclockwise circles, thus making any trip to the movies, pizza or making out impossible. It was a condition I learned to make the best of. I accepted that my car was not perfect and learned to drive with two hands on the wheel in order to get on with the evening at hand.
Since I got stuck with a car that had a front end misalignment, I had to figure out how to keep it on the road. Yes, I could not put my right arm around Christine because I needed both hands to steer. Actually, I think it somehow worked in my favor. Since I could not prematurely grope her, Chris would work her way along the long front seat (in those days cars did not have bucket seats) toward me inch by inch, getting closer, until she was practically on my lap. She would stroke my leg or sometimes drape her left arm around my shoulder. I just kept both hands on the wheel and steered us to our destination!
All of us lean to the left or right a bit. Perhaps you have a tendency to get anxious too quickly, or to fly off the handle and get angry. Or, maybe you get discouraged too early in the game and want to give up. Maybe the structural damage in your car of life was your parent’s divorce, financial condition or a crummy marriage. One parent may have been an alcoholic or a drug addict. You may not like what you got at birth in terms of your size, race or gender. Whatever the circumstance, you find yourself leaning to the side and continually being pulled off course, not getting what you are striving for.
The point here is this: to live an extraordinary life of success, accomplishment and satisfaction, you have to know which way you are leaning and learn how to compensate; only then can you avoid getting pulled off courseand driving in circles. If you are unable to find a way to compensate for your own structural damage, you may find yourself in one ditch after another, i.e., broken relationships, job disappointments, bummed out kids, addiction and emotional turmoil. You can chalk it up to the bad luck you inherited, destiny, your past, or whatever structural defect you can blame for how your life is turning out. Or, you can choose your life direction and learn how to navigate for success. Life does not have to be a victim game or a battle for survival. You can decide what’s important to you, steer in that direction, recognize what things knock you off course, and figure out ways to get back on track. You can learn basic skills that allow you to succeed. In my work on Navigating For Success, I have found that there are ten powerful skills people can use to stay on course and to achieve their goals and desires. In future posts, I will lay out these skills in detail in order to provide you with the benefit of my experiences.
In the meantime, consider the question I asked in the title of this post: what does God want to talk to you about when you die? Do you think it is about how religious you were and if you followed all the rules? Or if you belonged to the right political party? Did you make enough money, own a company or stay faithful in marriage? Perhaps! I think God probably just wants to know if you figured out a way to keep your car on the road. What way did you lean and did you learn anything from the experience? Did you just survive? Did you ever learn how to navigate? Did you figure out the map? And, most important, how did your date turn out when you parked?
If you want to read Moss Jackson’s book, Navigating For Success, click here to order it. If you want to reach Moss directly, leave a comment or call him at 610.642.4873 x23.