Rejoice in Ridicule
From today’s reading...
“And they ridiculed him.”
Jesus is walking to the house of a synagogue official to heal his sick daughter and in the midst of a huge crowd he “accidentally” healed “a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years.”
I say “accidentally” because it was her faith and her faithful actions of seeking to merely touch His clothes to resulted in her healing.
Anyway, this happens in front of a multitude of people and when He arrives at the official’s home He is ridiculed for offering words of encouragement and His assistance.
The nerve of some people, right?
That would be like a crowd watching Chuck Norris kick the moon out of its orbit to change the tides while he swims across the Pacific in one breath then people mock him for saying he’ll kick a tree down to help a carpenter make a piece of furniture. (You know Chuck Norris was in the Air Force, right? But I digress.)
We see this today in how analysts repeatedly—and incorrectly—predict the fall of Apple and the flop of the next iPhone.
We see this today in how fans and “experts” alike predict the fall of Alabama’s football team and the Patriots.
Sure, the underdog story is fine and all...but why do we hate proven winners? (I have my own reasons for hating on the Crimson Tide, but at least they knew to steal from the glorious LSU Tigers...but I digress...again.)
Excuses last a lifetime but success takes daily effort.
So take comfort in knowing that you’re in great company when your successes and achievements and victories and efforts are mocked and ridiculed, because living a life of excellence is the only way to...
Stay the course.
Keep the faith.
Endure.
Advisor to executives, startups, and sports teams on the intersection of culture & leadership. Defense and Aerospace advisor who sits at the intersection of .mil, .com and .edu. Highly sought after keynote speaker.
7 年Anyone who has done anything consequential—whether good, bad, ugly, or worse—has been criticized. Sometimes for things they deserved to be and sometimes not. Everyone from Mother Teresa to Winston Churchill has had to face, and face down, opposition in the public, the press, and even among the people closest to them. They’ve had their names dragged through the mud, their motives questioned, their methods scrutinized. And yet, all of these people found ways through the noise. They found ways to manage their reactions and responses, to discipline themselves to continue to press on. We talk about thick skin. Marcus Aurelius called it “tranquility.” It was, as he put it, “The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do.” That’s what we can control: what you do. You can’t control what they think, say, criticize you for, call you out on, or look down on. So if you take heat today—deservedly or not—just remember it doesn’t matter what they say (you choose whether you care about that or not). It only matters what you do.