Description
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT LIFE IS IN YOUR FISHBOWL
Fish Face
Ed Young
January 14, 2001
Do the research. Check the numbers. Look at all of the statistical data. People talk about happiness and they say, “I want to be happy.” As we look at this whole happiness thing, most of us think if we are successful, or if we have a lot of money, or if we one end up driving a Lamborghini, then that will equate to happiness. The real deal is this: people want great relationships. That is the top of the charts of all the data of all the relational experts as they study life.
The number one thing people yearn for is great relationships. We want those wonderful connections. We want them at work, at home, around the office, and at the golf course. We want great relationships. But there is a problem. I have got one and so do you. I’ve got some difficult relationships, and so do you. I’ve got some relationships that wear me out, and so do you. How do we deal with those difficult people? How do we deal with those fish faces in our lives?
I am in a series that’s called “Everything You Need to Know about Life is in Your Fishbowl.” We are simply taking a page out of Christ’s playbook. Jesus was the master communicator. He compared people to things. He talked about bread, a key, fish, and numerous objects that his culture could identify with. We are taking an aquarium, something that is a very common thing, and putting behind it some real significant stuff. So in the next few moments, we are going to get up close and personal to a bunch of fish. As we peer into this fishbowl, we are going to see other people in our lives, especially those difficult relational people, and also, I think we will see a little bit of ourselves. I want to warn you. This message is not about tweaking someone else’s tank. It’s more about tweaking our own tank. More about that later.
Are you thinking about those difficult people right now in your life? Are you running through that Rolodex of those who just wear you out? Maybe you are thinking about the first fish we are going to look at, the goldfish. Everyone loves goldfish. Goldfish, though, are high maintenance fish. They will die on you like that. Goldfish can eat themselves to death. If you feed them too much, they will just eat and eat and one day, you look around and they are just floating.
A lot of people are goldfish people, materialistic people, people who have to live on a certain level, to drive a certain car, to wear a certain type of clothes, goldfish people. But surely I am only talking to two or three people here in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. I’ll just talk to two or three right now. Those goldfish people, you know them. They swim around the office, around the neighborhood, and around your home. They say, “More, more, more.” Always blowing bubbles. “More, more, more.”
In Ecclesiastes 5:10, the Bible says, “Whoever loves money never has enough money.” Isn’t that true? “Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless.”
The goldfish has this exterior, and everything he or she reflects in life is about the accumulation of stuff and about things. Singles, if you are dating a goldfish, if you are kind of catching this current in your aquarium from the person you are taking out and they are going, “Oh, I have got to live in this kind of house. I’ve got to wear this kind of jewelry. I can’t live there. I can’t do that,” let me give you some advice. Spin on your fins and swim to the other side of the tank. There are other fish in the sea. You don’t want to swim down the isle with a goldfish, I’m telling you.
Now, let’s change gears a second and talk to the students here, and to those of us who are married. I want to talk to you about being friends with a goldfish. It’s fine to be friends with them, but you have got to be very careful. If you are rubbing fins with a goldfish and this goldfish person says, “Well, I cannot hang out with them because they are not on my level. Or they are giving me that kind of trip, or that kind of vibe,” spin on your fins and swim to the other side of the tank.
Now today, I am going to do something I don’t normally do. I am going to give you a long list of fish facts. Hang in there and get ready to write. I am going to give you some goldfish fish facts. Are you ready?
We all have those goldfish moments. That’s a fish fact. Just admit it. I’ll admit it right here. I have those times when materialism gets the best of me, when I swim around going, “More, more, more.” So if you are going to handle a goldfish, you have got to come to terms with the goldfish in your life.
Here’s another one. Limit your swim time with goldfish. If you swim with them too much, what happens? You become one. Materialism is an infectious disease, isn’t it? I don’t care if you are a lower middle class person or middle class or wealthy, if you swim around with goldfish—they come in all different types and all different socioeconomic levels—you will become enveloped by that “more monster” and he can eat you alive.
Here’s another one. Show goldfish you love them for who they are and not what they have. Just pray this prayer when you are with a goldfish, “God, help me to communicate to them your grace, your love, and your truth—that they matter to me and they matter to you because of who they are.” They are a sinner saved by grace if they know Christ personally. If they are outside the family of God, they are loved by God. Too many times, we confuse this whole self-worth and net-worth thing, don’t we? Most goldfish are people who have a poor self-esteem. They think if I accumulate all this stuff, and swim around going, “More, more, more,” and I get more, then I will have success and status, and I will feel good about myself. But it is not about being a goldfish.
There is another fish in our tanks, and this one is pretty scary. When blood is in the water, the piranha will go after you. Piranha people are all around us. A piranha person backbites. A piranha person will just tear you apart. They swim around with their teeth bared, ready to pounce. I am talking about that razor tooth relative, that biting boss. Do you know how to recognize a piranha-type person? Here is how you recognize a piranha person. If you are with them and you hear a piranha person ripping their so-called friend apart in your presence, go “Whoa! Whoa, girl.” She could be a piranha girl. “Whoa, boy!” He could be a piranha boy. If they will rip their so-called friends apart in front of your presence, what are they doing and saying about you when you are not there? Those piranha people.
Galatians 5:15, “If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other.” The piranha people came all over Jesus. They called him a drunkard, a glutton, a friend of sinners, and then they made the ultimate racial slur. They called him a Samaritan.
Here is what the Bible says about piranha people in the church. The church is to be about unity. The Bible says in the book of Titus, Chapter 3 that, if someone is a member of a certain local church and they begin to do the piranha thing, the church leaders are to warn them once, twice, and then to say in love, “You know what? You need to swim in another tank.” Piranha people.
What are some fish facts? I think we have to know how to relate to these people. I know some piranha people, and so do you. Now and then, I see a piranha in old Ed Young. Come to terms with the piranha within. Have you ever bitten someone before? Have you ever backstabbed a little bit? Have you ever kind of made a biting comment? I have. I am ashamed to say it, but I have. Again, this whole message is not so much about changing the difficult fish in your life as it is about changing you.
Here is another fish fact. Put yourself in their scales. Piranha have been deeply wounded. Whenever you see a piranha swimming around with their teeth bared and ready to strike, look past the piranha and say to yourself, “You know, self, this person has been wounded. This person has been scarred.” I grew up with a piranha person. This guy would just rip you apart. He wore me out until I got older, and I looked at his parents and I thought, “Okay, now I get it. He cut his teeth on criticism.” So often, piranha people are hurt. Hurt people hurt people. When you see someone lashing out, always attacking, more often than not, they are a hurt person trying to hurt others.
Here is another fish fact. Swim near the surface. Don’t piranha another piranha. We will face piranha people. We’ll face them in the corporate world, in the educational world, in the sporting world, and in the church world.
My boy, Nehemiah, back in the Old Testament… Remember Nehemiah? God instructed Nehemiah to rebuild the city wall around Jerusalem, a task that the piranha people said could not be done. Nehemiah was working on the wall one day and some piranha people began to attack him and just bite him. Then they tried to tear him from limb to limb. Here is what Nehemiah did. Nehemiah did not piranha with the other piranha. He stayed on top of the wall. Don’t get down and piranha with other piranha. Don’t swim to the bottom of the tank and do all that stuff. Swim near the surface. Let the piranhas fight it out. God will always honor it.
Now, I am not saying that we pretend like criticism is not there. We need to take criticism and take those biting comments and say, “God, is there truth there?” Most of time, there is not. They are just a bunch of negative people.
Let’s talk about another fish, the suckerfish. These are people that drain, people that when you go out to lunch with them, or invite them over to your place, make you feel like the life is being sucked out of you. They have taken everything out of you, but they have put nothing in. You are always checking your watch and going, “When are they going to leave? I have already paid the check. Let’s get out of here.” You know what I am saying? We all have them. Suckerfish relationships. We must have a balance of them.
Here is the problem. Too many of us have too many suckerfish. If you have an abundance of suckerfish affixed to your life, they will drain everything out of you. Here a suckerfish, there a suckerfish, everywhere a suckerfish. You don’t have the ability to find replenishing relationships. You don’t have the ability to swim with people you should swim with because the suckerfish are dragging you down. They usually attach themselves to us due to a need. “I need you. I need your financial help. I need your emotional help. I need you.”
We need to be sensitive to people, and we need to help people and have the message of Christ within our spirits. However, there is a point where it can get too clingy and too needy. There is a point where we have to go, “See you suckerfish. Give me some distance.”
Oftentimes, Christians are tyrannized by suckerfish. I firmly believe that the evil one places about five to ten suckerfish in every Christ-follower’s life. We spend so much time and energy trying to deal with these suckerfish that we miss the ultimate. We miss what Jesus really wants us to do instead of saying, “Hey, kind of keep your distance. Kind of swim to your side of the tank. I’ll help you but here are my boundaries, and I’m going to do what Jesus wants me to do and move on.” Too many of us are tyrannized by the suckerfish.
Think about your relational world. Do you have people that just wear you out, too many of them? Do you have too many people that you are just checking your watch on going, “Man, this person”? It’s a suckerfish.
Some suckerfish fish facts: Pull suckerfish off the sides of your life. Don’t be shy about it. Just pull them off.
Here’s another one. Put up boundaries in your bowl. You’ve got this fishbowl. You have your environment. You have to have boundaries. Here is where you swim and here is where I swim. Don’t let a suckerfish encroach upon your personal space. Here’s an example of a suckerfish. Let’s say you are a single guy, and you have this apartment somewhere in north Dallas. A buddy from college who is a suckerfish just kind of swims up and goes, “Hey, man, could I like stay on your couch for a couple of nights while I find a place?” Two nights turn into seven nights, and seven nights into two or three months, and you go, “Wow, I can’t really tell the guy to do his own thing.” That’s a little example of one.
Here’s another fish fact: Confront in love when you need to. You’ve got to come to a point where you confront the suckerfish and say, “I love you. I appreciate you. I want to help you, but I have got to have my space. This has gone over the line. You are swimming within my boundaries.” Suckerfish relationships.
Let’s go to another one. You will love this one. I do. The flounder people. Flounder people are, for the most part, male. They have a hard time with commitment. They are always floundering around. Flounders bury themselves in the sand, and they are kind of watching. They are waiting for something better to come along, and then they will grab it. But then they are always kind of floundering around.
Ladies, are you dating a flounder right now? Are you saying to yourself, “Man, this guy will not commit. He is buried in the sand just kind of waiting for something better to swim by.” The Bible says this about flounder folk in James 1:8, “He is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.”
My wife and I have talked to a lot of single women in this church over the years. Here is the number one complaint they have about guys: “They just won’t commit,” ladies say. They are just a bunch of flounders. We have got to come to a point, guys, when we are dating that, if this person is right, where we step over the line. If not, be honest with the person and see someone else. Matthew 5:37, “Simply let your yes be yes and your no be no.” Anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
I’ve talked about flounders in dating relationships, but how about flounders within the church? Talk to our ministry leaders in the preschool, nursery, and children’s area, and here is what they will say. They will say, “Man, we have got some faithful people that help us. When they sign up to work, they are here to work. But so many people sign up but they don’t show up. Not even a call or a note.” They sign up, “Oh, yeah, I’ll help out.” But they don’t show up. Are you going to flounder around in God’s church? Sign up and not show up? Are you going to bury yourself in the sand and say, “Well, I’ll show up, unless something better comes along this weekend; then I’ll do that”?
Here are some flounder fish facts, before I get excited. Be willing to swim away from your flounder. Are you? Are you ready to spin on your fins and go to the other side?
Here’s another one. Get them to talk truth. Sit down with your flounder and say, “Tell me about this relationship. Tell me about your commitment level. Tell me about you.”
Here’s another one. Clarify their commitments. Try to get them to break their commitments up in bite-size chunks.
Listen to me very carefully. Some people need to do this next thing with flounders, and I am talking specifically to women here. Some of you single women who are dating floundering guys need to do this (flushing sound). Be willing to flush the flounder. “Oh, I can’t believe he said that. Come on. Flush the flounder?” You know what the Bible says about people who are non-committed? The Bible says, if they are non-committed and you try, it says to take your sandals and kick the dust off of them and turn and go another way. That’s what the Bible says. Life is too short to be in relationships, deep relationships, with a flounder.
“I think so. I don’t know. I’m not really sure. You know, we don’t have enough money, or I’d get this settled.” Come on, Mr. Flounder.
This next fish is a hilarious fish. When I did the study on this fish, I saw myself. I think you will see yourself, too. Especially, I saw other people. You know we are pros at doing that. We see a fish and we say, “Oh, that reminds me of….”
I’m talking about the blowfish. This thing can puff up like a ball. You know some blowfish? Some people who are prideful, arrogant, and always saying, “Oh, yeah, I’m the man. I did it. I’m the woman. I did it.” Those are people who promote themselves, people who know how to do the one-upmanship thing. If you say, “Hey, I just took the family to Six Flags. We had a great time.” They say, “Six Flags, that’s great. We just got back from a Disney cruise and….” They always know somebody better, always live in a better house, drive a better car, always do something better, always travel to…. You know what I am talking about.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 4, “What are you so puffed up about? What do you have that God has not given you? If all you have is from God, why act as though you are so great, and as though you have accomplished something on your own?”
When I start having those blowfish moments, I think, “Ed, what have you accomplished on your own?” Zero. It’s all about the grace of God, totally and completely. But we have those blowfish, don’t we, always advertising, always saying, “Yeah, I’m the man. I’m the woman.”
Here are some blowfish fish facts. Their insecurity is usually the thing that drives blowfish to the center of their tank. They are, again, very insecure people. When you find someone always bragging, always puffing themselves up, it’s a warning. They are a blowfish. They are insecure.
Also, here is another blowfish fact. Quality fish don’t have to advertise. Like my dad told me years ago, he said, “Son,” he always called me son, “Son, Rolls Royce’s don’t really have to advertise.” That’s a great statement. Think about it. Have you seen a lot of Rolls Royce commercials? You don’t see very many. They are just the best cars. You don’t have to advertise. If God is doing something great in your life, you don’t have to say, “Look at me. I’m the blowfish.” It will come to you. God is God. It is by his grace. We have got to be humble in his sight, and he will take care of the rest.
Here’s another fish fact. Minimize opportunities for those blowfish to puff up. You don’t want to give them bait. Maybe don’t tell them about the trip to Six Flags, or the person you have met, or the thing that God has done in your life, because they are always going to say, “Okay, well let me tell you what I do, or what I am.”
Then another fish fact is share with them where true worth comes from. In other words, when I am with a blowfish person, I sometimes pray this, “God help me to communicate to them where true worth lies. It lies in you.”
This is hilarious. I have a friend of mine who is a card-carrying blowfish. This guy is just unbelievable. The thing about it is he doesn’t have to advertise, because he is a talented man, in business and many other areas of his life. One day, I went on a trip with him and I kind of did this test. I said to myself, “I’m just going to start mentioning names. I am going to see if this guy can bring everything back to him.” I started throwing out names, obscure names. I’m telling you, it was incredible. This guy would always bring it back to him. I thought, “Man, what a blowfish.” I learned something. You don’t always give blowfish that bait, because it just made me tired to listen to the guy.
Let’s go to my final fish, and this is going to be my favorite fish. You know what this is going to be probably, the large mouth bass. I’m talking about those who gossip. I’m probably only talking to about one or two people here, those who share those tidbits, those harmful words, those who tell the truth about other people in order to hurt them and damage them.
Gossip is a billion dollar business. Why do we like to see all this stuff on television, all this tabloid trash, read all the periodicals—People Magazine, National Enquirer? Why do we like to do that? There is something in us; it’s our sin nature, that loves to hear those juicy tidbits, those secrets, those lifestyles, those choices. We like to see people get all messed up. Don Henley wrote a great song about it, “Dirty Laundry.” Remember that song? “Kick ‘em when their up. Kick ‘em when their down.” I like that song.
1 Timothy 5:13, “They get into the habit of being idle and going around from house to house. Not only do they become idlers, but also gossips.” A gossip is someone who is nosy, vicious, and talkative. They become busybodies, the Bible says, saying things they ought not to. Ephesians 4 says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”
Here is your homework on this large mouth bass thing. I want us to do this. I want us to make a decision now that every word that comes out of our mouths will be affirming and God-glorifying. Let’s just say that. I don’t mean you lie. If you see something bad, just don’t say it. Say things positive. Find the good. If I begin to do that, I can revolutionize the Dallas/Ft. Worth area with this one little person. So could you. Just think about if we did that? I am going to say that I am not going to mess around. It’s going to be good words and good stuff out of my mouth. Wow, that is powerful.
Let’s look at some fish facts, because we need fish facts about the large mouth bass. Look at your own large mouth first. How many times do we gossip? What is so funny is that some of us gossip at church. Some of the best gossip happens during prayer sessions. “I just want to pray for this person, because you will not believe what they are involved with.”
I’ll move on to the next one. Gossip is a power trip. Very important. I asked myself, “Ed, why do you sometimes gossip about people?” You know why? You know why I gossip? Because when I gossip, when I share biting words about someone, in a subtle way, it makes me more powerful than them. I am using words as kind of leverage to jam them. That’s why we do it.
Here’s another reason why we do it. Gossip makes us feel better about our own environment. Think about it. I would love to hear, for example, about someone whose life is totally messed up, who’s totally in the deep weeds, through some tabloid trash on television, or reading about it in People Magazine or whatever, because that kind of makes me feel better about my deal. Maybe you are having marriage problems. Maybe you are not being the kind of husband or the kind of wife you should be. But you love to read about a movie star who’s really messed, who really has marital problems, because it makes your marital problems seem not quite as bad. Or you want to hear about someone who is messed up on dope, substance abuse, and, “Oh, I feel better to know that, because, you know, I’m not that bad.”
What does the Bible say? It says, “Stop comparing yourselves with others.” We have that tendency, don’t we, to always compare ourselves.
Here is another fish fact. Turn your large mouth into a small mouth. That is what we are going to do. We are going to say, “God, it only comes from you. You begin to do a work in my life, and I am going to begin to say things that glorify you and only you.”
Jesus Christ dealt with all of these fish. Think about it. The goldfish—Jesus went one on one with that rich young ruler, didn’t he? He was a card-carrying goldfish. The piranha—remember the Apostle Paul before he came to Christ? Persecuting and killing Christians. He was all about getting at Jesus, biting him and chewing him up. Suckerfish? How about Judas? He was just leeching onto to Jesus. You can go through every one of these. A flounder? My man, Thomas, “Yeah, I’m with you, Lord.” But then he died. Then Jesus rose again. Others saw him and Thomas said, “Oh, I don’t believe it.” Wishy-washy, floundering around.
I think a blowfish was Simon Peter, “Hey, Jesus, I’m the man. I’m the big fish. I am the mako-shark.” Jesus said, “Oh, really, really, Mr. Blowfish?” Large mouth bass? Think about all those religious leaders, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, always bickering, always gossiping, always spreading rumors, innuendos and lies about our Lord. He dealt with them.
As we continue in Part 2, we are going to swim to the other side of the tank as we talk about relationships. Because the solution to all of the difficult fish, all the fish faces we swim with, will really shock you. It’s not what you think the answer is.