Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them: How Community Pays Tremendous Dividends in Happiness, Health, Support, and Growth - Softcover

Ortberg, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0310340489 ISBN 13: 9780310340485

Verlag: HarperChristian Resources, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

Unpack the secrets of strong, thriving communities and relationships.

When we enter relationships with the illusion that people are normal, we resist the truth that "normal" does not exist and that the very idea of normality runs counter to Scripture. We enter an endless attempt to fix others, control them, or pretend that they are what they're not. One of the great marks of maturity is to accept the fact that everybody comes "as is."

In Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them, teacher and bestselling author John Ortberg zooms in on the things that make community work. You’ll get a thought-provoking look at God’s heart, at others, and at yourself. And you’ll gain wisdom and tools for drawing closer to others in powerful, impactful ways as Ortberg walks you through the secrets of strong, Christ-like relationships, unpacking qualities of healthy communities, such as:

• Forgiveness
• Confrontation
• Inclusion
• Gratitude

 

With humor, insight, and a gift for storytelling, Ortberg shows how community pays tremendous dividends in happiness, health, support, and growth. It’s where all of us weird, unwieldy people encounter God’s love in tangible ways and discover the transforming power of being loved, accepted, and valued just the way we are.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

John Ortberg is the senior pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church (MPPC) in the San Francisco Bay Area. His bestselling books include Soul Keeping, Who Is This Man?, and If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat. John teaches around the world at conferences and churches, writes articles for Christianity Today and Leadership Journal, and is on the board of the Dallas Willard Center and Fuller Seminary. He has preached sermons on Abraham Lincoln, The LEGO Movie, and The Gospel According to Les Miserables. John and his wife Nancy enjoy spending time with their three adult children, dog Baxter, and surfing the Pacific. You can follow John on twitter @johnortberg or check out the latest news/blogs on his website at www.johnortberg.com.

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Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them

By John Ortberg

ZONDERVAN

Copyright © 2003 John Ortberg
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-310-34048-5

Contents

Acknowledgments, 9, 
PART 1: "NORMAL: THERE'S NO SUCH THING, DEAR", 
1. The Porcupine's Dilemma, 13, 
2. The Wonder of Oneness, 27, 
3. The Fellowship of the Mat: True Friendship, 44, 
PART 2: HOW TO GET CLOSE WITHOUT GETTING HURT, 
4. Unveiled Faces: Authenticity, 65, 
5. Put Down Your Stones: Acceptance, 88, 
6. The Art of Reading People: Empathy, 105, 
7. Community Is Worth Fighting For: Conflict, 125, 
PART 3: THE SECRETS OF STRONG RELATIONSHIPS, 
8. Spiritual Surgery: Forgiveness, 149, 
9. The Gift Nobody Wants: Confrontation, 169, 
10. Breaking Down Barriers: Inclusion, 185, 
11. The Secret of a Loving Heart: Gratitude, 204, 
12. Normal at Last: Heaven, 219, 
Sources, 235, 

CHAPTER 1

THE PORCUPINE'S DILEMMA

To make a start where we are, we must recognize that our world is not normal, but only usual at present.

Dallas Willard

Community is the place where the person you least want to live with always lives.

Henri Nouwen

In certain stores you will find a section of merchandise available at greatly reduced prices. The tip-off is a particular tag you will see on all the items in that area. Each tag carries the same words: as is.

This is a euphemistic way of saying, "These are damaged goods." Sometimes they're called slightly irregular. The store is issuing you fair warning: "This is the department of Something's-Gone-Wrong. You're going to find a flaw here: a stain that won't come out; a zipper that won't zip; a button that won't butt—there will be a problem. These items are not normal.

"We're not going to tell you where the flaw is. You'll have to look for it.

"But we know it's there. So when you find it—and you will find it—don't come whining and sniveling to us. Because there is a fundamental rule when dealing with merchandise in this corner of the store: No returns. No refunds. No exchanges. If you were looking for perfection, you walked down the wrong aisle. You have received fair warning. If you want this item, there is only one way to obtain it. You must take it as is."

When you deal with human beings, you have come to the "as-is" corner of the universe. Think for a moment about someone in your life. Maybe the person you know best, love most. That person is slightly irregular.

That person comes with a little tag: There's a flaw here. A streak of deception, a cruel tongue, a passive spirit, an out-of-control temper. I'm not going to tell you where it is, but it's there. So when you find it—and you will find it—don't be surprised. If you want to enter a relationship with this model, there is only one way. "As is."

If you were looking for perfection, you've walked down the wrong aisle.

We are tempted to live under the illusion that somewhere out there are people who are normal. In the movie As Good As It Gets, Helen Hunt is wracked by ambivalence toward Jack Nicholson. He is kind and generous to her and her sick son, but he is also agoraphobic, obsessive-compulsive, and terminally offensive: If rudeness were measured in square miles, he'd be Texas. In desperation, Helen finally cries to her mother: I just want a normal boyfriend.

Oh, her mother responds in empathy, everybody wants one of those. There's no such thing, dear.

When we enter relationships with the illusion that people are normal, we resist the truth that they are not. We enter an endless attempt to fix them, control them, or pretend that they are what they're not. One of the great marks of maturity is to accept the fact that everybody comes "as is."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said people enter relationships with their own particular ideals and dreams of what community should look like. He wrote surprising words:

But God's grace quickly frustrates all such dreams. A great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves, is bound to overwhelm us as surely as God desires to lead us to an understanding of genuine Christian community.... The sooner this moment of disillusionment comes over the individual and the community, the better for both.... Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.

Everybody's Weird

Of course, the most painful part of this is realizing that I am in the "as-is" department as well. Throughout history human beings have resisted owning up to that little tag. We try to separate the world into normal, healthy people (like us) and difficult people. Sometime ago the title of a magazine article caught my eye: "Totally Normal Women Who Stalk Their Ex-Boyfriends."

The phrase that struck me was "totally normal women." What would one of these look like (or a totally normal man, for that matter)? And if the obsessive stalking of a past lover is not just normal but totally normal, how far would you have to go to be a little strange?

We all want to look normal, to think of ourselves as normal, but the writers of Scripture insist that no one is "totally normal"—at least not as God defines normal. "All we like sheep have gone astray," they tell us. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

This explains a very important aspect of the opening pages of Scripture.

One of the most ironic remarks about the Bible I hear from time to time is when someone says that it's a book about pious, stained-glass characters who do not reflect the real world.

I always know that means they haven't read it. Have you ever noticed how many messed-up families there are in Genesis?

Here's a quick summary:

Cain is jealous of Abel and kills him. Lamech introduces polygamy to the world. Noah—the most righteous man of his generation—gets drunk and curses his own grandson.

Lot, when his home is surrounded by residents of Sodom who want to violate his visitors, offers instead that they can have sex with his daughters. Later on, his daughters get him drunk and get impregnated by him—and Lot is the most righteous man in Sodom!

Abraham plays favorites between his sons Isaac and Ishmael; they're estranged.

Isaac plays favorites between his sons Jacob and Esau; they're bitter enemies for twenty years. Jacob plays favorites between Joseph and his other eleven sons; the brothers want to kill Joseph and end up selling him into slavery.

Their marriages are disasters:

Abraham has sex with his wife's servant, then sends her and their son off to the wilderness at his wife's request. Isaac and Rebekah fight over which boy gets the blessing. Jacob marries two wives and ends up with both of their maids as his concubines as well when they get into a fertility contest.

Jacob's firstborn son, Reuben, sleeps with his father's concubine.

Another son, Judah, sleeps with his daughter-in-law when she disguises herself as a prostitute. She does this because she is childless since her first two husbands—both sons of Judah—were so wicked that God killed them both; and Judah reneged on his obligations to her.

These people need a therapist.

These are not the Waltons. They need Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura, Dr. Ruth, Dr. Spock, Dr....

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: HarperChristian Resources
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0310340489
• ISBN 13: 9780310340485
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
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