Excerpts from John Ortberg’s

Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them

“As Is”

In certain stores you will find a section of merchandise at greatly reduced prices. The tip-off is a particular tag you will see on all the items in that area; each tag carries the same words: “as is.”

This is a euphemistic way of saying: “these are damaged goods.” Sometimes they’re called slightly irregular. The store is issuing you fair warning: “This is the department of Something’s-Gone-Wrong. You’re going to find a flaw here: a stain that won’t come out; a zipper that won’t zip; button that won’t butt—there will be a problem. These items are not normal. We’re not going to tell you where the flaw is. You’ll have to look for it. But we know that it is there. So when you find it—and you will find it—don’t come whining and sniveling to us. Because there is a fundamental rule when dealing with merchandise in this corner of the store: No returns. No refunds. No exchanges. If you were looking for perfection, you walked down the wrong aisle. You’ve received fair warning. If you want this item, there is only one way to obtain it. You must take it as is.”

When you deal with human beings, you’ve come to the “as is” corner of the universe. Think for a moment about someone in your life. Maybe the person you know best, love most. That person is slightly irregular. That person comes with a little tag: There is a flaw here. A streak of deception, a cruel tongue, a passive spirit, an out-of-control temper. I’m not going to tell you where it is, but it’s there. So when you find it—and you will find it—don’t be surprised. If you want to enter a relationship with this model, there is only one way. “As is.”

Everybody’s Weird

Every one of us has habits we can’t control; past deeds we can’t undo, flaws we can’t correct. This is the cast of characters God has to work with. Like glass is predisposed to shatter; like nitroglycerin is predisposed to explode; we are predisposed to do wrong when conditions are right. That predisposition is what theologians call depravity. We lie and sacrifice integrity for the sake of a few dollars (“I don’t understand, officer, my speedometer must be broken.”). We gossip for the sake of a few moments’ feeling of superiority. We try to create false impressions of productivity at work to advance more rapidly….We seek to intimidate employees or children to gain control, or simply to enjoy the feeling of power.

There’s No Such Thing As Normal

We are tempted to live under the illusion that somewhere out there are people who are normal. In the movie, As Good As it Gets, Helen Hunt in wracked by ambivalence toward Jack Nicholson. He is kind and generous to her and her sick son, but he is also agoraphobic, obsessive-compulsive, and terminally offensive: if rude was measured in square miles, he’d be Texas. In desperation, Helen finally cries to her mother, “I just want a normal boyfriend.” “Oh,” her mother responds in empathy. “Everybody wants one of those. There is no such thing dear.”

Here’s the rub: How do you pursue this beautiful dream of community with actual, real-life people? Weird, not-normal, as-is, dysfunctional people? Your friends, your colleagues, your spouse, your children, your parents, your small group, your church, your co-workers? Can it really happen?

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This is a book about how imperfect people like you and I can pursue community with other imperfect people. This is a book about how porcupines learn to dance. So you have to start with the actual porcupines right there in your life.

If Our World Were Truly Normal

In a world where shalom prevailed, all marriages would be healthy, and all children would be safe. Those who have too much would give to those who have too little. Israeli and Palestinian children would play together on the West Bank; their parents would build homes for one another. In offices and corporate board rooms, executives would secretly scheme to help colleagues succeed; they would compliment them behind their backs. Tabloids would be filled with accounts of courage and moral beauty. Talk shows would feature mothers and daughters who love each other deeply, wives who give birth to their husbands’ children, and men who secretly enjoy dressing as men.

Disagreements would be settled with grace and civility. There would still be lawyers, perhaps, but they would have really useful jobs like delivering pizza, which would be non-fat and low in cholesterol…People would be neither bored nor hurried. No father would ever again say, “I’m too busy” to a disappointed child. Our national sleep deficit would be paid off. Starbucks would still exist but would sell only decaf. Divorce courts and battered women shelters would be turned into community recreation centers; every time one human being touched another it would be to express encouragement, affection and delight. No one would be lonely or afraid. People of different races would join hands; they would honor and be enriched by their differences, and be united in their common humanity.

And in the center of the entire community, would be its magnificent architect and most glorious resident: the God whose presence fills each person with unceasing splendor an ever-increasing delight. The writers of Scripture tell us that this vision is the way things are supposed to be. This is what we would look like if we lived up to the norms God set for human life—if our world were truly normal. One day it will be.

Relationship Road Signs

Wouldn’t it be nice if they didn’t just have signs for roads, if they also had signs for people:

You come into work and there’s a big sign around your bosses neck: “Had huge fight with spouse this morning—proceed with caution!” You go to tuck your child in late at night; you’re tired and tempted to rush the moment when you see the sign: “Growing up too fast—reduce speed.” You go on a date with someone you don’t know: “Severely and breathtakingly dysfunctional: run for your life. Backing up will cause severe tire damage.” Or possibly the sign would read: “Dip.”

What if we all had to take “relationship education” in school and get licensed before we could start navigating relationships on our own? People could get pulled over by relationship police for talking too fast or too long or too loud, for failure to come to a complete and thoughtful “stop” before executing a proper confrontation, for trying to merge with all the signs said “road closed.” It would be a great help if people had signs telling us how to respond to them as try to navigate in our relational lives. And truth is—they do. But you have to learn how to read them.

The Need for Lightening Up

The church where I work videotapes pretty much all of our services, so I have hundreds of messages on tape. Only one of them gets shown repeatedly.

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It’s a clip from the beginning of one of our services. A high school worship dance team had just brought the house down to get things started, and I was supposed to transition into some high-energy worship by reading Psalm 150. This was a last-second decision, so I had to read it cold, but with great passion: “Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary! Praise him in his mighty firmament!” The psalm consists of one command after another to praise, working its way through each instrument of the orchestra. My voice is building in a steady crescendo; by the end of the psalm I practically shout the final line, only mispronouncing one word slightly: Let everything that has breasts, praise the Lord.

A moment of silence. The same thought passes through 4,000 brains—did he just say what I think he did? In church? Is this some exciting new translation I can get at the bookstore?

Then everybody in the place just lost it. They laughed so hard for so long I couldn’t say a thing. I finally just walked off the stage, and we went on with the next part of the service.

Eight years I’ve been teaching at that church: of all the passages I’ve exegeted and messages I’ve taught that’s the one moment that gets replayed before conferences and workshops. Over and over.

It’s an amazing truth: being fully right barely brings as much life to other people as simply being human.

The Last 10%

On the management team where I work, we often talk about the “Last 10% Rule.” The idea is this: often after going through all the hard work of setting up a difficult conversation we shrink back from saying the hardest but most important truth. We fail to say the last 10%. We get vague and fuzzy precisely where clarity is most needed by the other person. Instead of saying, “You talked too much at the meeting,” I say: “It was hard to have a good conversation.” Instead of honestly naming rude behavior, I speak vaguely of not feeling connected to the other person, and hope they will fill in the blanks. I do this not out of love for the other person, but because I don’t want to go through the pain or fear involved in deeper conflict. When I speak of the last 10%, I don’t mean that I’m to take on the obligation of straightening everything out in everyone. It certainly doesn’t mean I’m obliged to give every observation I have to everyone I know whether they want it or not. It does mean that in loving confrontation I must watch my tendency to get fuzzy precisely where truth is most needed and most difficult.

Truth Tellers

Every one of us needs a few people to tell us the truth about our hearts and souls. We all have weak spots and blind spots that we cannot navigate on our own. We need someone to remind us of our deepest aspirations and values; we need someone to warn us when we may be getting off track. We need someone to help us question our motives and examine our consciences. We need someone to perform spiritual surgery on us when our hearts get hard and our vision gets dim. We need a few Truth-Tellers.

The Inner Ring

I was talking to an old friend recently about regrets we had in life. The first one that came to his mind was striking to me. When we were in high school, he had been asked to Turnabout (the traditional girls-ask-the-boys dance) by a girl who was not in the inner ring of the popular crowd, or even the next couple of rings close to it. She was bright, gifted, artistic, but for reasons that are impossible to explain or understand she was positioned on the outer fringes of high school

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social castes. She was different, somehow. My friend said no, as gently as he could, but still firmly. The truth was, he told me, he was kind of afraid of what people might think. It might make him look farther away from the Inner Ring than he wanted to be. I could have gone, made it a great night, he said. I should have just ignored the whole stupid system of “who’s in and who’s out” instead of letting it have power over my life. If I could do high school all over again, he told me, I would have gone to the dance. All the time there are people around you who feel life out, like a mouse without a hole. Maybe it’s somebody at work that not many people pay attention to. Maybe it’s a widow in your neighborhood who doesn’t get visited much. Maybe there is a wall between you and persons of another color. You don’t mean for it to be there, but you have taken

steps to knock it down. You could begin to cultivate a friendship with someone who is different from you. You could say yes to the dance.

Endurance Test

Our neighbors across the street are something. The husband in that family has always been a kind of glue in our cul-de-sac. He has never met a stranger. He’s a home improvement guy—from the time we moved into our house eight years ago, he was never without a project. He would bring us over to see every new addition: when he finished the basement, when he’d redone the floors and knocked out a wall, when he’d added a gazebo. Each time my wife would look at me, saying with a single silent glance, what have you been doing with all your time?

One Monday morning very early last May, the paramedics came to our cul-de-sac. We watched as they carried him away in the ambulance. I drove to the hospital, and sat in the waiting room with his wife when they came out and said he didn’t make it. He was in his early forties. They have two children, both teenagers, both at home. Now, for that little house, life is an endurance test. I marvel at her determination as I see her care for her home, raising her children, holding on to hope. I marvel at how the embrace of family brings strength.

Why does something like that happen? I don’t know. I only know that finally, the choice everyone faces is the choice between hope and despair. Jesus says: choose hope.

The Most Exciting Five Minutes

I would like to ask you to think a moment—what were the most exciting five minutes of your life? As you look back on your years, what were the most breath-taking, exhilarating, emotion-producing 300 seconds you ever experienced? I think there is a good chance that, if were able to talk about it at the time, the most exciting five minutes of life would be the very first five. After nine months of darkness and isolation, you discover there’s a whole world out there, full of colors, tastes, sounds, sensations, other people. You have entered a realm beyond your wildest imaginings.

If you could talk you might have said: Mom, I had no idea. I actually had reservations about leaving the womb. Now I see—this is a much better arrangement. I wouldn’t have missed this for anything.

I think the most exciting five minutes of your life were the first five minutes after you were born. It’s all been downhill from there. But that’s nothing compared with what’s to come. I think the most amazing five minutes you will ever experience will be the first five minutes after you die. Think about that. For centuries, the brightest minds that have ever lived have devoted whole lifetimes to try to penetrate that veil; tried to learn what it is that lies on the other side of death. Five minutes after—you will know. You will experience whatever it is that lies beyond this world. You will have the foretaste of your destiny for all eternity. Those five minutes really are coming. Whatever lives beyond them—they are inevitable. They will happen for every one of us. This is reality.