My Way or the Highway // Dying to Live, Part 2

We all know people with that “my way or the highway” attitude. Delightful aren’t they? But truth be known, this a bit of that streak in each of us.  Question is, what to do about it?

Now we all know people in life who are the sort of people who dominate, they rule the roost, it has to be done their way, “It’s my way or the highway.” You know the sort; if you close your eyes you can just picture their angry faces.

It’s all kind of wrapped up in an inherent selfishness, an underlying belief that, well, I’m at the centre of the universe, life is all about my needs, gratifying my senses. Those kinds of people, to tell you the truth, are right proper pains in the neck, but you know, if the real truth be known, there’s a bit of that in each of us, to a greater of lesser extent. We all want our own way, we all want it done my way. In fact, let's face it, there’s a “my way or the highway” streak in each one of us. The question is what to do about it?

Our lives are all full of paradoxes, when you look at family or work or finances or leisure or what’s going on in our spirits or our behaviour. There are so many areas of paradox, so many areas where it should be satisfying, but it’s not, it should work but it’s not. We have so much yet something’s missing, and those contradictions, those paradoxes are like a tension inside. We can ignore them, we can hope that they’re going to go away but the reality is they don’t.

Today and over the next few days, we’re going to confront and unpack some of those paradoxes, not in a preachy kind of way but together look at it from a different perspective. The "my way or the highway" attitude is one of those areas, and there are two manifestations of that. One of them is arrogance, the blatant self-centeredness, you know at home at work. To tell you the truth I see it in churches, we have a basic model in our heads that says, there’s the universe and I’m at the centre of the universe and everything is supposed to come my way and happen my way and gratify me.

Theologians call that original sin. This is what they are talking about. I was on the bus the other day and I saw a little toddler, a two year old, right, and this two year old was rebelling against Dad because the two year old did not want to sit on this seat she wanted to sit on that seat. It is in our DNA.

The other way that it pops up though is a little bit more subtle, it’s in ugly duckling syndrome. It's being the perpetual victim. I was having lunch with a man and he was talking about his wife, and he said look you know, her parents never supported her, they never went to any of her sporting events, or her concerts when she was at school. She was even in hospital recently and they didn’t come and visit her, isn’t it surprising that that woman has low self esteem? Not at all. And so people can end up with the sort of, "I’m an ongoing victim" attitude, "I’m going to be a victim, whether you like it or not."

So whether it’s the road rage model or the perpetual victim model you don’t have to be Einstein to figure it out do you? Society says you can have it all, you can be it all as long as you buy this car or spend your money on this, and the two ways that that works out is the "me, me, me", thing or the "I’ll never make it, I’ll never be good enough." The paradox is that it doesn’t work, it should work but it doesn’t work. And we go on kidding ourselves, we have this template of who we are dropped on to our skulls right? And we ignore the consequences.

I was recently buying a colour laser printer for home. I do a lot of work from home, send a lot of mail out and so I needed a colour printer. There were two brands, brand A and brand B. Brand A was the cheaper one it was only $1,600 up front. Brand B was over $3,000 up front, almost twice as much, which one do you buy? Well, brand A of course right, it's cheaper. Problem is it’s not just about the up front cost, with laser printers there are consumables. There’s the cartridges that go inside them and that costs a lot of money.

You do a comparison between brand A and brand B and over three years printing 7,000 pages a month, which is roughly what I do, the difference in consumable costs is $18,000. $18,000 over the life of the printer. Which one do you buy? By the way the more expensive one which has the cheaper consumable cost also has better print quality, so which one do you buy? Do you buy the one that’s cheaper up front or do you worry about the cost and the quality over the life of the printer? It’s a bit of a no brainer isn’t it? Brand B is obviously the one that you want to buy.

The immediate cost is not the only thing that’s important, it’s the impact over the total life, yet, we normally focus on the immediate, we normally focus on the up front. The immediate reaction would be: buy the cheaper one, instead of looking at the life, quality, and outcomes. And then we look at Jesus kind of suspiciously and we turn away from that stuff “follow me” because we go, “Well what’s it going to cost me, you know, what’s it going to cost?”

I was talking to a friend who has an employee, this friend of mine is a Christian and the employee is not. And the employee said to him, “I could never become a Christian because I would have to change my lifestyle.” But what’s the cost of that lifestyle? What’s the cost over the life of the item of that lifestyle? And of course our lives are not like laser printers we use them for three years, we change them over and we get another one. Our lives are a one-off event on this planet. What’s the total cost?

I know people who say, “I’m a Christian”, they believe that Jesus is the Son of God; they believe that Jesus died for them but it’s never dropped into their hearts. It’s never changed their behaviour, it’s never made a difference to how they live their lives because they’re still caring the old template around in their head, they’re still carrying the road rage Ronnie or the perpetual victim mentality round in their lives.

Is that you? Are you struggling with this? Let me ask you, what’s it costing you? What’s it costing you in relationships? What’s it cost you in joy? What’s it costing you in the richness of your life, to be living like this? And is it time to take a stock, like I did with the printer and say “Am I focusing too much on the short term cost of change, am I just focusing on “I think it would be too hard to change, I don’t think I really want to change much?” Come on! You can pay $1,600 for brand A and pay next to $18,000 over the life, or you can pay $3,000 up front, get a payback within a few weeks and get better quality printing. Which one are you going to buy?

Jesus said, “Come and follow me, come on, come and follow me, take up your cross.” Well that’s a picture of … there’s going to be a cost, there are going to be some things we are going to have to change. You know from $1,600 for brand A to $3,000 to brand B the difference is $1,400, right that’s the difference, that’s the difference in the up front cost and when we look at a life just mumbling along doing what we always do, compared to the other brand which is a life with Jesus, which is better quality, and a better outcome is there a choice really?

Are we kidding ourselves that we just want to live the way we want to live? Or is it time to say, “I want the other brand, I know it’s going to cost me more up front, but I want the other brand.” It’s your decision, it’s your choice, I can’t make that decision for you. You have to count the cost. You need to look at your life and say “What’s it costing me, is it time, has the time come truly for me to put Jesus in the driving seat of my life?” Your choice.