How To Enjoy Life More - By Bo Sanchez

Sharing a very good article by Bo Sanchez.

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How To Enjoy Life More

We have a problem.

We don’t know how to enjoy life anymore. 

Why?  We have so many hang-ups, so many issues, so many worries, so many fears, so many burdens…

We have lost the art of enjoying life, of playing with small children, of conversing with a friend, of holding hands with a loved one, of smelling the flowers, of gazing at the stars, of singing in the shower, of dancing in the rain, of sucking deeply the bone marrow of life!

Let me tell you why people have a hard time doing these…

The Bottomless Pit Of Worthlessness

Deep inside us is a bottomless pit of worthlessness.  (In the Philippines, the only time we hear the word bottomless is connected with Iced Tea.  You can drink 16 glasses and the waiter will still keep on pouring.  It’s endless.)  Deep down, we feel a nagging sense of inadequacy.  We feel there’s something lacking in us.  We feel that we’ve been measured and we’ve been found wanting.

You’ll see this everywhere you look.  People are walking around carrying this bottomless pit of worthlessness inside them, and they’re looking for ways to fill this pit.  And many people try to solve their worthlessness with three things: Work, Wealth, and Warmth. 

Work: To fill this bottomless pit of worthlessness, some people work endlessly.  They work in a frenzied pace.  They work and forget their families and health and spiritual life.

Wealth: Others try to solve their worthlessness with wealth, filling their lives with material things.  Cars.  Gizmos.  Houses.  Brands.

Warmth: Others try to solve their worthlessness with warmth, getting people to like them no matter what the cost, making them people-pleasers and approval-addicts.  They become co-dependents, trapped in enmeshed relationships.  They lose their identity and have no boundaries.

Please know that Work, Wealth, and Warmth are wonderful things.  They’re gifts from God.  But they can NEVER fill up your bottomless pit of worthlessness.

John Had Everything And Yet…

I read a true story about a student named John who never had a grade lower than A in his entire 4-years in college.   And John was about to graduate summa cum laude.  But before graduating, the unthinkable happened: John killed himself. 

This shocked the entire college.  How could he do that?

John left a suicide note.  In that note, he wrote, “I just couldn’t measure up to the standards of this world, perhaps in the next world I can do better.”

Why?  This is the bottomless pit of worthlessness within him speaking. 

What’s The Song You Hear In Your Head?

Believe me, I’ve met a lot of people who are plagued by this pervasive feeling of inadequacy.  Inwardly, they hear the constant refrain, “There’s something wrong with you…” like a permanent LSS.  (If LSS to you means Life in the Spirit Seminar, then that means you’re my age.  LSS means Last-Song-Syndrome.)

Subconsciously, they feel they can never measure-up to these standards.  They’ll never be beautiful enough.  They’ll never be rich enough.  They’ll never be successful enough.  They’ll never be happy enough.  They’ll never be holy enough.

Some of these people feel that no matter what they do, they’ll never be a great husband, or a great wife, or a great father, or a great mother.

This nagging feeling of inadequacy is the air that they breathe.  It colors the way they look at themselves, the way they look at life, the way they look at the world.

I compare these people to a donkey…

1. Racing Donkey

Donkeys are stubborn.  To make a donkey walk, all you have to do is dangle a juice, crunchy, red-orange carrot one foot away from its nose.  The donkey sees it, smells it, seeks it, and off it goes, chasing after the carrot.

But he never can catch it.  The donkey moves forward but the carrot moves forward too.  Perplexed, he takes another step.  But the carrot takes another step too.  As the donkey moves faster, the carrot moves faster too. 

That is a perfect picture of many people today. 

I’ve been doing ministry for 30+ years.  I’ve talked to thousands of people all over the world.  Believe me, most people are like that donkey.  We’re looking for our “carrot”, something to fill our bottomless pit of worthlessness.

But we can never chase it.

If Work, Wealth, and Warmth can never fill your bottomless pit of worthlessness, let me tell you the only thing that can.

But first, let me tell you about the second donkey…

2. Relaxed Donkey

This second donkey is a relaxed donkey.

Why?  He has discovered that the carrot he was chasing was all the while with him.  He was carrying it along! 

Once he realized this, he relaxes.

So let me tell you now the only thing that can fill up your bottomless pit of worthlessness.

The only solution to worthlessness is Worth. 

I can hear your reaction: “Bo, you’re nuts.  Of course, worth is the solution to worthlessness.  But how do you get that worth?”

That’s my point.  You don’t get worth. 

You already have it.

By the mere fact that you exist.  By the fact that you’re alive.  By the fact that you were created by God, you’re somebody!  You’re special. You’re a treasure. You’re precious.  You’re His masterpiece.  You’re the crown of His creation.  You’re His child.  You’re His Prince and Princess.  You’re His the love of His life. 

You’re like the donkey chasing after a carrot that you’ve been carrying all along.

I repeat: You need some work to be happy.  You need a level of wealth to be happy.  You need a degree of warmth and relationships to be happy.  But here’s my point: Even before you work, or get wealth, or get warmth—you’re already a person of GREAT worth.

Here’s the truth.  There is no such thing as a bottomless pit of worthlessness.  It’s an illusion.  What you think is a bottomless pit of worthless is actually a bottomless pit of WORTH!  Because you already possess the intrinsic worth imputed by God to your soul.

Make This Discovery And You’ll Relax

This is true happiness: When you discover that what you’ve been looking for—searching in distant lands and faraway planets—was actually in your heart all along!

I repeat.  The bottomless pit of worthlessness is fake.  It’s not true.  Because you’re a human being, a child of God, created in His image, you are a bottomless pit of great worth.

This is an incredible discovery.  Unless you make this life-changing discovery, you’ll never enjoy true peace in your soul.  You’ll never have true rest, true contentment, true happiness in your life.  You’ll always be searching, seeking, looking, and longing for something.  You’ll always be trying to fill the emptiness of your heart with stuff: New clothes.  Jewelery.  Popularity.  Money.  Achievements.  Fans. 

Here’s the truth: Everything you want is already within you.

You might say, “Bo, that’s not true.  I don’t have what I want.  What I want right now is a new job,” or “a new house,” or “a new boyfriend” or “a new sexy body.”

But why do you want what you want?  Why do you want that new job, or new house, or new boyfriend, or new sexy body?

If you search deeply within your soul, you’ll realize you want that thing because you think that that thing will increase your worth.

But there’s only one thing that you increase your worth.

That one thing is love.

Bottomline, you want love.  Love is your biggest, deepest, greatest need.  And you have all the love you need.  God is within you.  And the Bible says that God is love.  So let me repeat—everything that you want is already within you.  

Because right now, you’re already loved.

Performance-Based Parenting

But where does this bottomless pit of worthlessness come from?

Simple Answer: From parents. 

Obviously, the answer is more complicated than that. There are many reasons. But for many people (not all), this is where our feelings of inadequacy come from.

How?  Parents raise their kids by “Performance-Based Parenting.” What in the world is that? 

Performance-Based Parenting is when the core message to their kids is, “I will love you only if you perform.  I will be proud of you only if you perform.  Your value and worth are based on your performance.  If you don’t perform, I will think less of you.  If you don’t perform, I will love you less.”

I’ve met a lot of parents who are like this.  They want their kids to solve math problems by 2, play the piano by 3, write computer programs by 5, and pass the medical school by 12.  They force their kids to enrol in painting class, swimming class, gymnastics class, Mandarin class, and violin class all at the same time.

These parents go ballistic when their kids fail an exam.  They go hyper when their kids have catsup on their shirt. 

Another sign that your parenting is Performance-Based?  If the most common line you say when you’re angry at your kids is, “You embarrass me!  What will others say if they see you fail? If you’re a bad child, they’ll say I’m a bad parent!”

Parents Pass On Their
Bottomless Pit Of Worthlessness

Fact: These parents want their kids to perform because they want to perform as parents.  Kids that are racing donkeys have parents who are also racing donkeys. Kids have a bottomless pit of worthlessness because their parents have one too.  In fact, they merely inherited it from them.  (And guess where these parents got their bottomless pit of worthlessness?  From their parents too.)

Hey, I’m not saying that parents shouldn’t encourage their kids to excel or to reach their full potential or to work hard.  We should!

But our core message to our kids should be, “I love you for being you.  I’m happy you’re you.  Before you do anything good, you’re already a fantastic person.  I’m already proud of you.  I encourage you to give your best NOT to win my love for you.  That’s a done deal.  You already have my love.  I want you to give your best as a way of loving yourself and being who you truly are.”

If you have a kid, let me give you a very important tip…

Say “I Love You” At Odd And Unexpected Times

I love telling my kids “I love you” all the time.  But I see to it that I don’t say those words after they “perform”.  (I say other words like “That’s a nice drawing,” or “You sang so well,” or “You did great…”)   But I say “I love you” to them in the most odd and unexpected times.  Sometimes, when we’re in bed, about to sleep, I tell them, “Do you know how much I love you?” Or when we’re taking our morning walk, I squeeze his little hand and say, “I’m so proud that you’re my son.”

The opposite of Performance-Based Parenting is Presence-Based Parenting.  My love for them isn’t connected to their Performance but to their Presence.  By the mere fact that they’re my kids, that they’re alive, that they exist, that they’re created by God, they’re worthy of my love.

Let me clarify.  Parents should teach their kids to love hard work.  But to work hard not out of fear of worthlessness but out of love for one’s intrinsic worth.

By the way, religious leaders are parents too.  Sadly, some religious leaders use “Performance-Based Parenting” too…

Skewed Religiosity

Religion can worsen this feeling of inadequacy.  Religion can worsen your bottomless pit of worthlessness.

I know.  I’ve been a religious leader for thirty plus years.  And I have a confession to make.  In the first decade of leading my little group, Light of Jesus, I had a very skewed spirituality.  I was uptight, rigid, legalistic, and judgmental.

I never realized that my image of God was also uptight, rigid, legalistic, and judgmental.  (Truth: We relate to others according to our image of God.  Because we become the God that we worship.)

My life revolved around trying to fulfil very high spiritual expectations to gain God’s approval.  Such as praying one hour a day, and reading the Bible one hour a day, and going to Mass everyday, and praying the Rosary everyday, etcetera…  The list was endless.

Years later, I realized I had a “Performance-Based” spirituality.  To feel worthy of God’s love, I had to do no sin, think only pure thoughts, be a good boy, and do my religious obligations…. 

If I failed any of these stringent requirements I set for myself, I felt God was shaking His head in disgust at me.

Learning To Relax In God’s Love 

But for years, the real God was gently knocking into my heart.  And He kept telling me, “No need to perform.  Just relax in my love.”  The radical idea was so foreign to me, I wondered if this was God at all.  How dare He tell me to relax?  How dare He say I was worthy of love even before I do anything good?

Slowly, I began to realize that God wasn’t uptight.  Or rigid.  Or legalistic.  Or judgmental.

After three decades, I’m still learning how to relax in His love.

I’m still learning to follow God when He said, Be still, and know that I am God.  (Psalms 46:10)

Here’s my unauthorized translation of this verse: God is saying, “Relax in my love you.  You don’t need to impress me with your performance.  I love you as you are.  I believe in you.  You’re a wonderful person.”

May your dreams come true,

Bo Sanchez

Victory Is An Inside Job - by Bo Sanchez

A nice read. Just want to share.
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Today, I’d like to start a powerful series entitled, The Fighter. In these next three to four weeks, I want to teach you how to fight temptation—and win. Man, I love this incredible series. (I’ll be speaking from my heart, because much of what I’ll share comes from my personal “war stories”.)

        This series has three myth-busting messages: (1) Focus on the Good; (2) Friend with the Good; and (3) Fight for the Good.

       Today, I’d like to talk about how to Focus on the Good.

       Let me warn you. What I’m going to tell you today is controversial. In this message, you’ll read stuff that you won’t hear very often…

Where’s The Fight Taking Place?

       Do you fall into sin?

       Have you ever fought temptation and lost?

       I’m asking this question because, uh, I can’t relate. Sin is very foreign to me. In fact, I always ask my friends, “Can you describe what it feels like to sin? Because, frankly, I’ve never experienced it.”

Well, okay, I do admit I have one little, tiny, itsy, bitsy weakness…

I lie. 

       Haha.

Okay, no more jokes. If you have sinned against God, then keep reading. Because your preacher is the greatest sinner.   Name a sin, and 99% of the time, I’ve done it.  (I haven’t killed anyone. At least, I don’t remember.)

       So today, I speak to you as one fellow-sinner to another fellow-sinner. I share with you today the lessons I’ve learned while I was stuck in the muck of sin.

Yes, your preacher is bruised, broken, and bandaged—but still blessed by the mercy of God.

Here’s the big thing I realized. When I find myself trapped in my habitual sins, it’s because I was fighting in the wrong arena.

I was fighting outside me when the battle was inside me.

       No wonder I was losing!

       We think temptation is as an external problem. It’s not.  It’s an internal problem.  Because all these external temptations are almost powerless if it didn’t have allies working within me.

       Here’s my big message for you today: Victory is an inside job. 

By the way, failure is an inside job too…

The Fight Is Within You

My mother lived during the Japanese war.

And she has all sorts of crazy stories to tell.

One of them was that before the war began, she said there were Japanese vendors selling their stuff on the streets of Manila. But when the Japanese army attacked the Philippines, these Japanese vendors—who were dressed very simply—turned out to be high-ranking officers of the Japanese army.

It’s like the story of the Trojan horse.

For 10 years, the Greeks were trying to conquer the city of Troy, but with very little success. The city of Troy was impregnable, with high thick walls and a massive gate that the Greek soldiers couldn’t destroy, no matter how hard they tried.

But one day, the Trojans (the people who live in Troy) saw the Greek soldiers sail away. And saw that the Greeks left behind a giant wooden horse.

The Trojans brought the horse into their city as a trophy of war. They didn’t know that the Greeks just pretended to sail away. And that inside the wooden horse were Greek soldiers hiding.

That night, when the Trojans were asleep, the Greek soldiers came out of hiding and opened the gates of the city–welcoming the returning Greek soldiers. They marched in and destroyed the city of Troy.

       Read carefully: You fall not because of the strong temptation outside you but because of the weak situation inside you.

The temptation shouldn’t have been powerful.

But someone opened the gate.

Who is that someone? 

Your Trojan Horse.

This Trojan Horse is the greatest, most powerful, most potent, most deadly weapon of the devil.

The Greatest Weapon Of The Devil

       One day in Hell, there was an Annual Infernal Conference attended by the all devils in the world. The Theme of the Conference was, “Our Greatest Weapon Against God’s People”.

       The first Speaker—a high-ranking devil—stood on stage and announced, “There is no debate about this. Our greatest weapon against God’s people is lust!” All his listeners applauded. He explained, “Even Presidents, Priests, and Preachers are totally defenseless against lust!”  And the entire crowd roared in agreement.

       The second Speaker came up. Wearing a black tuxedo with a thick gold ring on every finger, he declared, “The first speaker is stupid. Don’t listen to him. Because our greatest weapon is greed!” The audience drank his every word. He said, “Imagine the billions of people who are suffering today because of our assistants on planet earth—greedy politicians!”  And the whole assembly screamed, “Yeheey!”

       The third Speaker climbed up on the platform amidst the sound of blasting trumpets. He wore a royal red robe and a golden crown. With extreme arrogance, he shouted, “The first two speakers told you a bunch of crap. Don’t listen to those ignoramuses. Because our greatest weapon is…” and he clenched his fist in the air, “…Pride!”  The entire hall thundered with applause. He screamed, “Every war in the history of mankind was caused by pride!”

Finally, the last Speaker of the Conference stood up. And when they saw him, the room became deathly quiet. Because everyone knew who he was. He was the devil that brought the most number of souls away from God.

He wore a simple black robe. He spoke quietly. He said, “There is something more powerful than lust and greed and pride. In fact, I compare lust, greed, and pride to wooden toy slingshots. And I compare our greatest weapon to a nuclear bomb. Because with our greatest weapon, you can multiply the power of lust, greed, and pride by a million times…”

By this time, all the devils in the hall were shouting to the top of their lungs, “What is it? What is our greatest weapon?”

He waved his hand to quiet the crowd.

And he whispered, “Our greatest weapon is… self-rejection.”

When External Spiritual Activity Isn’t Enough

       Self-rejection is the Trojan Horse of temptation. It opens the gate of your soul to temptation. That’s why you lose the battle.

       I speak with authority because this was my experience.

Decades ago, I couldn’t kick the habit of pornography. For years, no matter how I tried, I couldn’t get out of its deathly grip. All my energies and time were being consumed by this addiction.

At that time, I asked my religious leaders, “How can I fight temptation? It’s so overwhelming.” And these spiritual people would give me pat, canned answers.

They’d say, “You need to pray more,” or “You need to memorize the Bible more,” or “You need to attend more prayer meetings,” or “You need to avoid the situations that lead you to sin”

       All these advices are great stuff.  (In fact, I’ll give you the same advice in the third part of this series, but from a different angle.)

But at that time, I was shocked when they didn’t work on me.

I still fell into sin. Repeatedly. I still was trapped as ever. I told myself, “Hey, I doubled my prayer time. Why did I fall? Gosh, there must be really something wrong with me!”

Here’s why these activities failed: Because all these good advices was telling me to focus on the fight “outside” me.  “Add spiritual activities, like adding ammunition, and you’ll win.”

Soon, their advices added to my frustration—which made me sin even more.

How?  

First of all, I already hated myself for falling into sin again and again. And now, I had a brand new reason to hate myself. Because I promised to pray more and memorize the Bible more—and I failed to do them too!

This vicious cycle of self-rejection led to more sin.

The Anatomy of Habitual Sin

       Let me tell you something that very few people will tell you…

       Behind every sin is a cry for love.

       Your greatest and deepest need is to be loved. Mother Teresa said, “the greatest poverty is the poverty of being unloved.” When you don’t fill this great hunger for love, you scramble and grab anything that will quiet this hunger.

       So you look for a replacement. A painkiller. An anesthetic.

       That narcotic is sin. 

Because the pleasure of sin is the pirated version of the pleasure of being loved.

The problem with the fake version is that it’ll never truly satisfy your deepest hunger. Instead, it will increase your need. What used to satisfy no longer satisfies. Over time, you’ll need to increase the dose of the narcotic.

 A porn addict starts looking for unnatural sex. A gambler starts gambling with higher amounts of money. An adulterer starts searching for more partners.

Drugs. Alcohol. Sex. Gambling. Materialism. Food addiction.  Approval addiction. At the core of all addictions, they’re all the same: It’s a desperate need for love.

       Let me give you another analogy…

Love Is Expensive

       In many streets of Metro Manila, you’ll see rugby boys. It’s a heart-wrenching sight. I cry whenever I see them. Little boys—as young as six years old—sniffing rugby on the sidewalk, looking at the world with glazed eyes.

These kids are hungry for food. But because food is expensive and rugby is cheap, they go for the drug. To forget their hunger, they sniff the brain-shrinking, neuron-burning chemical adhesive.

But people who have habitual sins are in the exact same boat.

We’re hungry for love. But love is expensive and sin is cheap. So we go for our habitual sin to deaden the inner pain of our hunger for love.

I repeat: Love is expensive.

Believe me. It’s not easy to love yourself. To value yourself. To forgive yourself. To accept yourself. It’s easier to sin than to do the hard work of loving yourself the way God loves you.

How Will You Know If You’ve Got A Trojan Horse?

There are 3 signs to know if there’s a Trojan Horse in you…

First, you don’t love yourself. You reject you.  You hate you. You don’t accept who you are. You don’t celebrate you.

       Second, your most important relationships are dysfunctional. You don’t receive love from your closest relationships. Even if there are people around you who truly love you, you can’t see this nor receive this love.

       Third, you worship a “rejecting” God. A legalistic, cruel, judgmental God. So you don’t receive love from God as well.

       Unless you heal this inner wound and start learning to love yourself the way God loves you, you’ll never be able to win over temptation.

       Next week, I’ll talk about how to do this.

       But let me give you the first step that you need to do to fight the battle within…

Receive God’s Unconditional Love Now

       Let me repeat: The pleasure of sin is the pirated version of the pleasure of being loved. 

Do you want to experience the pleasure of being loved? 

       Receive God’s unconditional love today!

       And take your cue from God.

Don’t focus on your badness; Focus on your goodness.

       Don’t hate yourself. Don’t reject yourself. Or this self-rejection will cause you to sin even more.

       He loves you more than you can ever imagine.

Have you sinned? Have you fallen?

       God doesn’t look at what you did wrong.

       God looks at what you did right.

       God doesn’t focus on your failures.

       God focuses on your future.

       In your eyes, you’re bruised, bandaged, and broken. In God’s eyes, you’re beautiful, beloved, and blessed.

The Bible says, But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. (Romans 8:5, 11)

What is God saying here? He says, “Don’t focus on your sinful nature. Focus instead on your spiritual nature. Can you imagine? My own Spirit is in you!”

In other words, focus on the good.

This is a mind-blowing truth.  That the same awesome power that created every atom, molecule, pebble, leaf, tree, valley, ocean, mountain, planet, sun, star, and galaxy… yes, the most powerful force in the universe… is in you.

And that most powerful force—the Holy Spirit—is love.

Next week, I’ll teach you how to heal the Trojan Horse of Self-Rejection.

       May your dreams come true,

       Bo Sanchez