Can your thoughts affect your life in any real way? Are you really what you think? In a previous blog I talked abut overcoming curses. A lot of the power of a curse is wrapped up in suggestion. If you suggested to someone that they are going to fail, the power of that suggestive thought can have an impact on that individual.

If it didn’t work no one would do it. But witness the trash talk of professional athletes. They know that if they can get an opponent off their game they can cause them to underperform and increase their own chance of victory. Get someone dwelling on missing a shot and watch how that can affect their game.

When I was younger I did some volunteering at a minimum security prison. It was a state prison that not only held first time offenders and men charged with minor crimes but also “hard-timers” on their way back out into society. North Carolina released these men by a long process of bringing them up through the system from maximum security, to medium, then to minimum before releasing them into a half-way house.

Because I was working with these guys week to week, I began reading books by and about convicted criminals. Most of the books agreed that most criminals came out of broken, often violent homes. It is not surprising to observe that many of these men had people in their lives filling them with a negative self images. These men often had mothers or fathers who said they were “no good,” would “never amount to anything,” and “I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up in prison,” or words to that effect.

Can the power of suggestion be so powerful, especially coming from someone of a high status in your life, that It can actually influence your life path? Your destiny? Well, intuitively the answer is yes, it can. Pretty much every prisoner I worked with said they were told they were no good and would fail. I believe most of them were telling the truth, not just trying to gain sympathy.

Still, it is not universally true that you can’t overcome negative words spoken into your life. There are plenty of examples of men and women that were told they couldn’t do something and proved everybody wrong. So what’s the difference between them and those that are beaten by negativity?

Usually a mentor, promoter, producer, coach, or friend, comes into their life: someone who believes in them, someone who takes the time and makes the effort to invest in another life. Sometimes the mentor does it for no personal gain, but most of the time there is something in it for them as well.

As a volunteer in the prison, I realize now I was a little too inexperienced in life to offer much in the way of mentorship and encouragement to these men. I was too easy to “get over on,” and, most of all, I was too young in the Lord. In other words, I was still in the “lifestyle improvement” process myself. Apart from what we could learn together I wasn’t much use to men in their situation.

My experiment with the prisoners was mostly a failure. I worked intimately with two men about my own age for three years: James and Coot. James got out and struggled finding work. I helped his family out for a while though I had very little money myself in those early years. He ended up in the hospital after being hit by a car, and almost lost his leg. He got back into drugs and landed back in prison.

Coot did better. He stayed out, but he never got any traction in life and just coasted along living hand to mouth. I lost touch with him after I got married.

I came to the conclusion that I was not prepared to help individuals that were fallen so low. I was too far removed from their experience. However, ten years later I became a manager at Duke University. I came in contact with several students and contract workers that could be encouraged and trained and promoted with a little extra help. That’s where I found success.

By then I had developed a discerning mind. I was more able to see how to encourage someone within their skill set. Most of the people I coached and encouraged had managed to become moderately successful by developing a talent stack that gave them the potential they needed to succeed.

So, believing that God sent them to me, I was able to find their talent that was on the cusp of brilliance and give them the little push of encouragement they needed to crest that hill. Then, with very little effort expended on my part, I could watch them coast into a path of success.

I believe that God calls certain people to help those who have been “cursed” by words and beaten down by life. I am purposing to pray for them as we pray for those on the frontlines of the Covid crisis. I also pray for those of us who God is calling to be like a coach: to encourage and help people develop their God given talents, bringing out their best. Starting in grade school with a dispirited and insecure young man is another ballgame entirely and that is what we faced in the prisons. It takes a herculean effort to overcome the kind of societal beatdown these men have been given.

A wise pastor told me once that one person cannot minister to all the needs of another individual. It’s too overwhelming. It takes a community of support to do it. As we grow more isolated and our lives become more “siloed” by technology, I worry about the state of humanity. It is hard to care for people: to deal with their idiosyncratic ways and needs, but the alternative is a dysfunctional and lost world where evil creeps in the shadows, seeking whom it may devour.