Life’s Most Important Advice

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We all have influence of some kind and whatever your sphere of influence there are times that you need to pass on some wisdom about life, the universe and everything. (The answer is not as easy as 42.)

If you had to pass on just one piece of ‘life advice’ to someone else, what would you say?

In his recent book, C. S. Lewis – A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet, Alister McGrath highlights the influence that Anglican minister, Father Walter Adams, had on Lewis. He says that although we know virtually nothing of their conversations, C.S. Lewis had stated that Adams was his only real confessor.

Adams had apparently emphasised one piece of advice to Lewis:

“Have patience with God, with your neighbour and oneself.”

Fifty years after his death, C. S. Lewis continues to inspire and fascinate millions. His legacy remains varied and vast. He was a towering intellectual figure, a popular fiction author who inspired a global movie franchise around the world of Narnia, and an atheist-turned-Christian thinker.

In C.S. Lewis—A Life, Alister McGrath, prolific author and respected professor at King’s College of London, paints a definitive portrait of the life of C. S. Lewis. After thoroughly examining recently published Lewis correspondence, Alister challenges some of the previously held beliefs about the exact timing of Lewis’s shift from atheism to theism and then to Christianity. He paints a portrait of an eccentric thinker who became an inspiring, though reluctant, prophet for our times.

My regular Wednesday morning guest on 98five Sonshine FM is Rev Dr Ross Clifford who is the Principal of Morling College in New South Wales. Each week we chat about a range of issues relating to spirituality and belief.

This week we discussed the idea of patience with God, our neighbours and ourselves. How different would our lives look if we practiced that piece of advice?

You can listen to our conversation by clicking the play button on the audio player below.



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Advice for the child I was

196__Rodney.jpgI’m not really sure when this photo was taken but I know it was well over 40 years ago. It’s me when I was just a few years old, before I learned so many of life’s lessons.

As I look into the face of that happy, innocent child, I wonder what advice I would give him. If I could go back to the mid-sixties and give my ‘young self’ some life advice, what would I say?

I think I’d tell him not to worry about the small stuff so much. I’d also tell him to cultivate a strong reading habit.

Some of my strongest advice would be in the area of faith. I’d recommend that he stay as close to God as he could and to learn how to lean on him through the good and the hard times.

I’d tell him to make the most of his relationship with his mother because he’d only have her around until his early twenties. (Thankfully I did have a great relationship with mum, but she still passed away far too soon.)

One of the things I’d be sure to say is to make sure you take lots of risks. Not reckless risks that would endanger him or others, but risks that ensure that he didn’t ever wonder ‘what would have happened if only ….’.

I’d tell him to treasure every relationship.

I’m sure that there would be plenty to tell that young boy. There are lessons that I’ve had to learn the hard way that would have been easier if someone had the right words to say back then.

Overall, I don’t have many regrets but I certainly wouldn’t want to go back and do it all over again. I’ve had a pretty good life so far and while it’s likely that I’ve passed the half way mark already, I still feel as if life is just beginning in some ways. I’m also finding that a lot of the advice that I would give that young boy is the kind of advice that I’m giving or need to give to the two young lives God has entrusted to me now.

If you could go back and give some advice to yourself when you were very young, what would you say?



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