I wish you could see me now
I wish I could show you how
Im not who I was
I used to be mad at you
A little on the hurt side too
But Im not who I was
Im Not Who I Was – Brandon Heath
Christian musician Brandon Heath wrote this tune in 2005, but it took some time for him to bring the tune into the recording studio, as he considered the song fairly basic and not his likely breakthrough song. Needless to say, he might have rushed the song forward if he knew what would happen!
Im Not Who I Was became Heaths first No. 1 single, sitting atop the Billboard Christian charts for six weeks and earning him a Dove Award nomination for the song of the year, and Heath was also nominated for the best new artist, which he won.
Heath has explained in interviews that he was inspired to write the song after seeing an old photograph of someone who he hadnt spoken with in many years. He had been a musician from a young age, but it was during his high school years that an invitation to a Christian camp from a friend changed his life as he became a Christian and began writing Christian music.
He reflected that the person in the photograph knew him and loved the person that he was before he became a Christian but had distanced since. In interviews, he stated that he felt he could have been a much better friend to this person now as the person he became, and he thought about those who would be surprised by who he had become.
We often like to push people into our own ideas of who they are. We do it from a young age, as well. The kid who reads extra books and knows all the answers in class – nerd. The kid who is abnormally tall and strong at a young age – jock. The person whod rather spend time playing an instrument or singing than most anything – music geek. And so on and so forth.
This past Sunday in church, the scripture was Luke 13:1-9. In the second half of the reading, Jesus told the parable. The story relates the story of a man with a fig tree in his garden that had not produced fruit yet after three years. The man told his gardener to cut the fig tree down, but the gardener asked to give the tree one more chance, and he would give the tree special attention and fertilizer.
If it still did not produce fruit, it could be cut down.
The story left me thinking about fig trees. While most would agree with the landowner that the purpose of a fig tree is to produce figs (hence the name!), they are planted in many countries without worry for the fruit. A fig tree can establish itself with a fairly shallow top soil and thrive, and the typical growth of a fig tree allows for it to be known in certain areas of the Arab world as the sitting tree.
The reason is that a fig tree grows in such a way that it has thick leaves that provide excellent shade, but most fig trees in the climate of the Upper Midwest or the Middle East (where Jesus was talking) grow to about 10-15 feet tall, with the branches growing in such a way that a six-foot person would likely hit their head on the tree. The shade is excellent, but you really need to sit under the tree to enjoy it.
So, even if the landowner wasnt getting figs, its very feasible that the tree could have been offering plenty of other value.
Too often, if we dont see someone offering value in what we have pigeon-holed their value to the world to be, theyre failing in their life somehow.
On March 11, Ulysses Bridgeman Jr. passed away in Louisville. Known by most as Junior Bridgeman, he had a 12-year career in the National Basketball Association after he was the eighth overall pick in the 1975 draft by the Lakers. In a solid but not spectacular career, Bridgeman was most well-known as being the centerpiece player that the Lakers traded to bring back future scoring leader Kareem Abdul-Jabbar from Milwaukee.
Junior found a niche as a scoring-focused bench player, a role that a decade later would be served by Vinnie Microwave Johnson with the Detroit Pistons teams and future scoring champion James Harden on the early 2010s Oklahoma City Thunder teams.
Junior retired after the 1987 season, and most who had earmarked Bridgeman as a jock completely missed the next chapter of his life. While he was a player, Bridgeman worked with Wendys restaurants and learned their business model, and he became one of the top franchisees of that restaurant, at one time owning over 450 fast food restaurants in total, including more than 160 Wendys.
He started Bridgeman Foods Inc. and branched out into soda bottling operations. In one of the last major financial moves of his life, Junior purchased a ten-percent interest in the Milwaukee Bucks, where he played the majority of his playing career. While exact terms of the purchase were not made public, the estimated value of that portion of the franchises value was $400 million.
Juniors most prolific season earnings from the NBA was the $350,000 annual contract that he played under with the Los Angeles Clippers from 1984-1986. His estimated career earnings were in the $3 million range.
He passed away with a personal net worth of more than $1.4 billion.
He was infinitely more successful and was able to impact significantly more lives in the work he did after his basketball career than during it. Shaquille ONeal heavily leaned on the wisdom of Bridgeman when making investment decisions during his career and considered Bridgeman a mentor and a friend.
When we hold someone into a certain role that we assume they fit, we truly miss out on who they can become.
Whether its someone who is affiliated with a particular church or a particular political party or a fan of a certain sports team or has a job as a police officer or teacher or store manager – thats not the entirety of who the person is.
We can encourage so much more in everyone around us by truly finding out who they are.
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