Crucial Characteristics: Traits Needed, but Seldom Taught, for Succeeding in Adulthood

By Roger Schauble

If you’re like me, you often feel like an adolescent
in an adult body. It seems like there are things you
wish someone had taught you long before now. At age
20 a couple of friends taught me some principles of
life--personal characteristics--that inspire just about
everything I think or do now (I’m now 6

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Oct 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781640881303

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Crucial Characteristics

Traits Needed, but Seldom Taught,

for Succeeding in Adulthood

Roger Schauble

Trilogy Christian Publishers A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Trinity Broadcasting Network2442 Michelle Drive Tustin, CA 92780

Copyright © 2018 by Roger Schauble

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Amplified Bible (AMP) Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, CA 90631. All rights reserved.

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC) Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation

New King James Version (NKJV) Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

J.B. Phillips New Testament (PHILLIPS) The New Testament in Modern English by J.B Phillips copyright © 1960, 1972 J. B. Phillips. Administered by The Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England. Used by Permission.

The Message (MSG) Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Scripture quotations marked (KJV) taken from The Holy Bible, King James Version. Cambridge Edition: 1769.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Trilogy Christian Publishing

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First Trilogy Christian Publishing paperback edition May 2018

Trilogy Christian Publishing/ TBN and colophon are trademarks of Trinity Broadcasting Network.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Trilogy Christian Publishing.

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

B-ISBN#: 978-1-64088-129-7 wE-ISBN#: 978-1-64088-130-3

DEDICATION

I dedicate CRUCIAL CHARACTERISTICS Traits Needed, but Seldom Taught, for Succeeding in Adulthood to my son-in-love Darrell, and Darrell’s long-term-buddy Linsey.

To help me focus on the various types of readers this book is intended for, I pretended I was mentoring these two guys with the various chapters of this book. I so much wanted to spare them - and anyone younger than myself - some of the many mistakes I’ve made as an adult. In my over 60 years of life, there are crucial characteristics I wish someone had taught me much earlier in life than they did.

In my over 60 years of life, there’re things I wish someone had told me ahead of time.

It may be too late to become a father again to my two boys (Ben and Jeremy) and two girls (Kelly and Heidi), who are all adults now. For many years I’ve been respected by people I work around, but I often was a different person at home. I was an abusive father during the teen years of my own kids.

I’ve since gone through many months of intensive domestic abuse treatment. I’m no longer the same person I used to be. For my own kids, it may be a situation of too little change from me too late in their lives.

People who’ve walked away from church involvements…People who’ve never really understood things in the Bible…People who’ve believed God doesn’t care about their day to day struggles…

Someday God may bring a new chapter, and a rest of the story as Paul Harvey used to say, between myself and my children.

I trust there’s still time to be a respected step father to Darrell (even though he’s in his mid 30s), any future girlfriends of his, and Linsey. It would be the best of both worlds if I could be a good friend as well as a good dad to them. I’d feel a major sense of accomplishment if I became an adoptive dad to them in however many years I have left on this earth.

Although I pictured them as I wrote this book, I really had SOME of you (I realize this book won’t appeal to everyone) on my mind:

People who’ve walked away from church involvements. I say, from experience, church isn’t a building or a denomination, it’s an active relationship with the creator of the universe.

People who’ve never really understood things in the Bible. I say, from experience, much of the Bible can be understood with a little coaching and lots of pondering.

People who’ve believed God doesn’t care about their day to day struggles. I say, from experience, God will answer more and more of your concerns once you come to Him through His Son rather than on your own terms.

FORWARDS

Roger Schauble has written a book that is ideally suited for those who find themselves wandering through the Bible as they ponder its contents. I find this approach very refreshing as my own reading of the Bible causes me to wander and ponder. As one discovers that life is not a linear step by step, paint by numbers chronological sequence of events, so too the Bible is written in a style that is well-adapted to the nimble wanderings that life of this planet offers. Yet the guidance therein is solid as a rock no matter the sequence of events we encounter in our lives. Read this book and enjoy. You will be glad you did!

Jim Overway, lay counselor

Roger has written a personal and insightful book that encourages the reader to immerse him or herself in the fruit of the Spirit and live a fully complete life. His stories, insights and quotes all contribute to the journey on which the reader will embark as the book is read. This is a book that is not so much about reading but about experiencing. It should be read with a rhythm that includes pauses for reflection and personal application. A reader will enjoy this book but a thinker will find it valuable.

Rev. Gary Benton, Master of Counseling

PREFACE

I have many things I’ve learned, mostly the hard way or by trial and error, in my 62 years of life. However many years I have left of life (Dad died at 73, Mom is 86; my current mother-in-love died at age 92, her husband’s still alive at 96), I’d really like to leave some legacies.

In junior high, now called middle school, I had a vague desire to help people.

I have a natural talent and the willingness to serve in the background: I worked in a couple of restaurants in my early 20s. I worked as a church custodian for about two years. I worked more years than I’d like to actually figure out back and forth in the professional cleaning industry. I’ve been a custodian in three commercial accounts for the cleaning franchise I now work at for the last nine years.

Yet I realized years ago that the service industry isn’t where I want to make a career—and certainly not an avocation.

I eventually want to be reconciled with my four adult children, and possibly have some of them work with me in my writing business.

I’ve learned so much since graduating from weekly church classes in my childhood denomination. I felt then that there must be more to learn about spiritual things because I still had so many questions without answers. I’ve been straight, moral, and had a good work ethic most of my life. Yet I, like most other people, have still felt a longing for something more - something deeper.

Although I feel I’ve just scratched the surface, especially in the last 40 years, I want to pass on the life principles (and truths if you will) to anyone who’s willing to let me share what I’ve gleaned. I’m no expert in spiritual matters although I’d be the first one to tell others that such things have made me the person I am today.

INTRODUCTION

Inadequately Prepared for Adulthood

The harshness of life has a way of stealing so much from people by the time they become adults, including a willingness to seek whoever they’ve come to believe God is.

Forty years ago I, too, was seeking for something more meaningful in