“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.”  – Psalm 37:7 

Waiting patiently has never been one of my greatest strengths.  Example: back in the mid-1980’s when I was in my mid-thirties my career was really starting to take off.  Because of that I had become pretty full of myself, and impatient that it was not rising even faster.  So, like any good red-blooded ambitious young man I took matters in my own hands to speed up the process, pouncing on the first opportunity that came my way.  But instead of advancing my career, I almost wrecked it.   Worse, I had relocated my family to another city which was unsettling to them, compounding the near disastrous outcome that could only be blamed on my lack of patience.

Over the years, however, I have found some consolation in realizing I’m not the only person to jump the gun, taking matters into my own hands.  Remember the Biblical story about Sarah and Abraham who remained childless well into their old age?  Yet God had promised they would produce offspring.  But when?  Sarah, after all, had long passed childbearing age.  So, what did they do?  They took matters into their own hands, Abraham fathering a child through Sarah’s maidservant Hagar, a boy named Ishmael.  As with me, they had jumped the gun; for that was not what God intended.

Fortunately, by the grace of God and despite our taking matters into our own hands, God still delivered on his promise to Abraham and Sarah, and to me and my family; for Sarah did eventually conceive and bear them their long-awaited son Isaac, and good fortune came our way through a dream job I was offered back at my old firm.  How many people, I wonder, make the same mistake we did, leaving the dock just before our ship came in?

As we approach Christmas, amidst all the hustle and bustle we would do well to remember that this is a time for waiting patiently; for it is not inconsequential that God used a mother’s womb and the human gestation period as the delivery method for sending His Son to earth; for such a process, as we all know, cannot be hastened by taking matters into our own hands.  Rather, it requires that we “be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.”  That’s why we Christians refer to the season leading up to Christmas as Advent, a time for waiting patiently, anticipating the arrival of our Lord. . . . Although waiting patiently is still not one of my greatest strengths, I am getting better.

“Run in such a way as to get the prize.”  – 1 Corinthians 9:24 

One of my favorite books by the popular writer and speaker Brené Brown, is a bestseller called Daring Greatly, a phrase borrowed from a speech given by Teddy Roosevelt back in 1910.  Here’s a brief excerpt: “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again. . . who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails daring greatly. . . .”

Tee and I were competing in a 5k race recently when at mile two a lady passed us who appeared to be around our age.  Soon, however, we caught up and passed her.  And back and forth it went the rest of the race.  I quickly sensed what was going on and informed my beloved spouse, “that lady is your competition,” except she pretended to ignore me as if she either didn’t believe me or didn’t care.  But I knew better, as I could see her muscles subtly tense up, and with the finish-line in sight her pace starting to accelerate.  As her encourager I was forced to step up my pace as well.  Eventually her competitor fell further behind, allowing Tee to finish first in her age category.  But it wasn’t so much the gold medal that made me proud of my spouse; rather it was, with that quiet competitive spirit of hers, having the courage to step into the arena and “daring greatly.”

It reminded me of my mom who was also a quiet competitor.  She loved games – cards, dominoes, bridge, board games, even golf and fishing.  One of my favorite memories of her occurred in her last days when she was suffering with cancer.  One day the hospice care facility, which provided physical therapy to keep her going as long as possible, engaged her in a domino match with a gentleman who was obviously in a similar circumstance.  With that competitive gleam in her eyes as she faced off with her opponent, I could see what was coming.  Poor guy didn’t stand a chance.  Mom died just two weeks later, finishing her life the way she had always lived it – “daring greatly”!

Besides the sport of it, God must surely have instilled a spirit of competition in human nature for other reasons, perhaps as a way to bring out the best in us, inspiring us to be more and accomplish more than we ever imagined – to “Run in such a way as to get the prize,” – or as Teddy Roosevelt and Brené Brown would say, “daring greatly.”

“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”  – Matthew 6:27 

I once saw a quote on a marquis in front of a church that read, “Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.”  Now pause for a moment and let that roll around in your head a bit. . . “Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.”

It reminded me of Mark Twain who once said he had known a lot of troubles in his life and most of them never happened.  Or like “The Mountain in Labor” story from Aesop’s fables.  “A mountain was once greatly agitated.  Loud groans and noises were heard, and crowds of people came from all parts to see what was the matter.  While they were assembled in anxious expectation of some terrible calamity, out came a mouse.  [The moral of the story is . . .] Don’t make much ado about nothing.” 

Most of our worries are like that, much ado about nothing.  During my long-time former career as a bond trader it was inevitable that the market would occasionally retreat, but sometimes those retreats would digress into downward spirals.  As a trader holding positions those were gut-wrenching, cold-sweat, sleepless-night kinds of times.  In fact, I have to admit as I got older those times did not get any easier but grew even more stressful and became the driving force behind my decision to leave the business before it affected my health and impacted my family.  On the other hand, there never was a down cycle during my entire career – no matter how stressful – that I did not survive and find that there was blue sky on the other side.  Yes, such times did require prudent and aggressive management, plus a lot of hard work, but never ended in total disaster.  In the midst of the storm it felt like that mountain in labor, but in the end out came nothing but a mouse.  Sometimes I would even ask myself why I worried so much.  And life went on.

“Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.”  For, “Who of us by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”  By contrast, do you ever wonder how many hours of our lives have been lost from worrying?  Most of us are like Mark Twain; we’ve known a lot of troubles in our lives, but most of them never happened.

“He must increase, but I must decrease.”  – John 3:30 

The day started off like this. Tee and I both rose early, donned some warm sweats and ventured out into the frosty air for a three-mile jog, after which I took a quick shower, got dressed and rushed off to the doctor’s office for my routine semi-annual checkup.  If that sounds like some sort of healthy lifestyle obsession, I assure you it’s not.  Instead, it was a premeditated act of pure defiance; for this occurred this past Thursday which, you see, was my seventieth birthday, and going for a run followed by a medical exam was my way of refusing to accept the fact that demographically I am now counted among the elderly.

The intention of my actions was to make a statement, that I am not ready to throw in the towel, and absolutely refuse to do so.  I’m not done yet.  I still have responsibilities and work to do.  Or as Robert Frost expressed so well in those familiar lines from his poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”                                                                                                           

But I do have to admit that turning seventy has caused me to be a bit more introspective than normal, and even a little anxious; for as much as I may want to defy being counted among the elderly, reality is that the time I have left to fulfill my responsibilities and complete my life’s work is limited.  If I want to finish well, I must be about it with vigor and determination.  But what do I need to do different, and where do I start?

So, as much as I may have felt a bit of anxiety when I awoke last Thursday, I also experienced this strange sense of freedom.  That freedom came from realizing I no longer have to prove myself, that my responsibilities will be fulfilled, and my life’s work completed simply by being me.  But that reality didn’t come about because I’ve reached a certain age, it’s always been true, I just never allowed myself to believe it.

Now, as I look upon my children, and especially my grandchildren, clients, friends, the upcoming generations, though I continue to work with vigor and determination, I must begin to decrease in order that they can increase.  If I can do that effectively in my – hopefully many – remaining years I will have fulfilled my responsibilities and completed my life’s work.  I will have finished well.  Thankful to be seventy and able to learn that.

“He who answers before listening – that is his folly and his shame.”  – Proverbs 18:13 

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make any noise?  Remember that little riddle?  Let me ask it another way.  If someone speaks and no one is listening, is that communication?  A business article I once read suggested that are “plenty of programs that teach people to speak – but few train them to listen.”  If that’s the case, then “what we have here is a failure to communicate”, to quote from one of my favorite Paul Newman movies, “Cool Hand Luke”.

Like a mathematical equation, communication is incomplete without speaking and listening equaling each other.  This imbalance is nothing new, of course; in fact, it is probably as old as mankind itself.  But perhaps it has become exaggerated in this age of electronic and social media that allows us to “speak” instantaneously to mass audiences any time we wish, which in turn creates an environment of everyone trying to speak at once and an ever-increasing noise level to overcome in order to be heard.  The screaming just becomes louder and louder in hopes someone will listen.  The end result is that there is a world full of people begging for someone to just listen.

The International Coach Federation (ICF), through which I am a Professional Certified Coach, considers “active listening” as one of the core competencies that must be mastered in order to receive certification.  That has led me to wonder if our profession, assuming the business article I read is correct, is not one of the few where listening skills are actually required, thus rigorously taught.  At the very least, what I’ve observed from practicing this profession over many years is that becoming a great communicator begins first of all by being an attentive listener, and that attentiveness often speaks much louder than words.

So, allow me to restate the riddle.  If someone speaks and no one is listening, is that communication?  If the answer is “no” then based on my observations “what we have here is a failure to communicate.”  And if that’s true, what’s missing in the equation, and what can you and I do to bring it into balance?  Here’s a hint:  there is a world full of people begging for someone to just listen.  Otherwise, “He who answers before listening – that is his folly and his shame.”