They limit the way we look at life, and they limit what we can do; so for example, one of the things that I learnt when I was quite young was this. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I work, it's never good enough. There's a lot of pain behind that belief, and there's a lot of repeated experiences, that no matter how hard I work, hours and hours and hours worked hard, in fact every school I ever went to I got a diligence prize. I worked hard, yet no matter how hard I worked, there were never words of approval or commendation. There was always pointing out where I'd fallen short and could do better: you could do better. You could have done this, you could have done that. Now that shaped how I saw life. It doesn't matter what I do, how hard I work, how much I try, it's never good enough. Now you can imagine, even becoming a Christian, that doesn't necessarily change. Now it just transfers to God: no matter how much I do, how hard I try, I'm still never good enough - except now I've got all these other things you've got to learn to do, that you didn't have to do when you weren't a Christian. Know what I'm saying? You're getting quiet now, so I know this is probably echoing something in your own heart.
No matter what I did, I could never please dad, it was as simple as that. Didn't matter how hard I tried, didn't matter what I did, someone was still always angry, and with that there's all the pain that goes with it. No matter what I did, I could still never get approval. No matter what I did, it was always criticised, so what did I learn from those experiences? Apart from all the grief and loneliness that came with it, I learned lots of things. I learned no matter how hard I try, people are still going to get angry, they get mad at me, I never get approved of, and I'll never be good enough, and whatever. I learned all those things growing up. When I became a Christian, they didn't change. When I became a pastor, they didn't change - except now there's more people finding fault. [Laughter] Not only in my own church! [Laughs] There's more - so the world was full of what I believed it to be full of: disapproval. So of course if you're a good Christian, then you take on a persecution complex, being persecuted for walking with God. That's a load of rubbish. It's just you got what you're believing, and it happens over and over and over again. I know we're all quiet now, because it's getting a little close to you - so what you learn to do is, you learn one of two things. You learn either: to strive and compete and drive; or you learn: what's the use? When you learn what's the use, there's a lot of grief in the heart, there's pain, there's loneliness, and there's despair. I would find myself saying: oh it's hopeless; come into a situation: it's hopeless, can't change it.
I would be resigned to being powerless to change some things in life. Know what I'm talking about here? [Laughs] No one's admitting anything now, okay. So what happens is, you become a Christian, and then in the short term, there's an immediate joy of engaging God, you feel loved - I'm so blessed. Then I found I was crying a lot - started off really happy, and filled with the Holy Ghost, and praying; then there was a lot of crying. I realised I had a lot of grief, all those years of not being loved, to come in where God just loves me, oh! I had to make changes in how I believed. Now what I found of course is people carry - you have a whole lot of new experiences, and your old beliefs surface. Of course what happens is, is that we have developed this kind of way of thinking now, that actually kind of puts us still as a victim, and I want to shift you out of that. I'll show you how God shifts you out of it, and what your part in it is, so you can make the shift.