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“If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.”  –  Luke 17:6

People who insist upon seeing with perfect clarity before making a decision, typically get stuck in a state of indecisiveness.  The fact is there is no way to research and analyze thoroughly enough to know for sure what the outcome of a decision will be.  Ultimately every decision at some point requires a leap of faith, a casting of caution to the wind.

Tee and I met each other on a blind date.  A mere six months later we were walking down the aisle.  It was a brief courtship for sure – some may have judged it as too short – but so far it has lasted forty-five glorious years.  Yet as in love as we were at the time, there is no way we could have had perfect clarity about our compatibility.  There came a point where our decision required a leap of faith.

Faith, though, is more and requires more than simply a passive state of belief or trust.  Faith is a call to action.  To use marriage in another example, it was the occasion of my brother and sister-in-law’s fiftieth wedding anniversary when their grandson – himself about to be engaged – asked his grandfather, “Granddad, how do you stay married for fifty years?”  “You just do,” my brother replied.  A flippant answer?  Hardly!  In fact, I thought it was one of the most brilliant and wisdom-filled treasures a grandfather could pass along to his grandson.  To make the decision to wed is always a leap of faith.  But for the marriage to be successful and life-long-lasting requires action – every day for the rest of their lives.  In other words, “you just do.”

Faith and action are inevitably intertwined.  That is, while a decision to act requires a level of faith, having faith is also a call to act.  Even faith itself, some have suggested, is a verb not a noun; that faith occurs through an act of will in deciding.  Taking a leap of faith (action/verb), in other words, is to trust ourselves and/or others to do and accomplish, while also trusting in God’s divine intervention.  This applies to changing jobs or careers, starting a new business, relocating to a new city, and most every other endeavor – including marriage.  First we must have faith, then “you just do.”

“. . . go and bear fruit – fruit that will last.”  – John 15:16

Viktor Frankl, the renowned psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor believed that people are primarily driven by a “striving to find meaning in one’s life”.  In response to that yearning we all seem to have, he wrote in his famous book Man’s Search for Meaning, “We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly.  Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and right conduct.  Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”

True to Frankl’s belief I found myself at one point a number of years ago frantically searching for that unique, singular meaning for my own life, trying to articulate it in the form of a mission statement (which I still contend to be a noble if not challenging exercise).  Then one day while reading John’s Gospel there it was.  “You did not choose me,” Jesus said, “but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last.”  What I had been struggling over for months had been written down – for me – centuries ago, my personal mission statement, “go and bear fruit – fruit that will last”.

At first I was tripped up by my newly discovered mission.  I had hoped for something more specific, even fanticized about something heroic.  Bearing fruit simply seemed too general, and doesn’t it apply to everyone, not just me?  Of course it does.  But it also means something uniquely different for each of us. My circumstances are unique to yours, as are yours to mine, and my daily encounters are unique to yours, as are yours to mine.  Frankl expressed it so well, “Life ultimately means taking responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”

“He has showed you, O man, what is good,” reported the prophet Micah.  “And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  (Micah 6:8).  That’s living a meaningful life, that bears fruit that will last.

“The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone.’”  – Genesis 2:18 

“For without friends,” Aristotle once said, “no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.”  In his writings known as the “Nicomachean Ethics” Aristotle identifies three kinds of friendship, the first based on the pleasure of another’s company, or “friendships of pleasure”.  The second has to do with usefulness in association, or “friendships of utility”.  And the third is about mutual admiration, what he refers to as “friendships in virtue”.  All are essential to the good life, according to his writings, and the best sorts of friends will not only admire each other’s excellence, but take pleasure in each other’s company and find their association of mutual advantage.  (Sources:  William J. Bennett’s The Book of Virtues and Wikipedia)

I am self-employed and work alone.  It has been my life’s dream to do this, to do my own thing, be my own boss.  It is a glorious way to live to be given the opportunity to make a living doing what one loves to do, where work does not feel like work.  I love it more than anything I can ever imagine.  But I must warn that in some ways working solo is a dangerous endeavor.  More than once I have learned of its hazards the hard way; for as with any occupation certain support functions are required in order that the primary purpose be pursued, not all of which are fun nor am I particularly good at them.  Example:  More than once I have received notices from government agencies informing me that I have failed to file this or that report.  These are not intentional, of course, simply oversights – ignorance more precisely.  Each incident has taken at least a day in total to resolve, time taken away from my primary purpose which I find most aggravating.  Such administrative distractions are more common than I care to mention.

Over time I’ve had to learn how essential it is to surround myself with trusted friends and colleagues who help me in supporting my best efforts; that even though I remain self-employed and work alone, I cannot do it by myself.  I need a team.  I need colleagues within my profession from whom I have much to learn.  I need others who are good at the things I am not.  And I need the company of family and friends who give me pleasure.  As the Lord God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.”

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  – Matthew 6:34 

If you are a comic strip reader like me, you may have seen this one the other day. . . It’s Friday afternoon and Dagwood Bumstead is heading out the door for the weekend.  “Have a nice weekend, boss,” he bids Mr. Dithers.  “You’d better rest up this weekend, my boy,” Dithers responds with a smirk, “Monday morning can’t get here soon enough for me!!”  The next scene shows Dagwood staring glumly out the car window when one of his carpool mates asks, “Do you have any plans for the weekend?”  To which Dagwood replies, “I’ll probably just sit around and dread Monday.”

Can you see yourself in that story?  I do.  I wonder how many precious hours I have wasted in my lifetime sitting around dreading tomorrow?  That’s what is so great about comic strips, how they highlight our own absurdities.  We laugh at poor old Dagwood for how silly he looks, until we realize the joke is on us.  Dagwood is simply holding a mirror up in front of us so that we can see our own folly.

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  These wise words do not imply that we should not have “concern” about tomorrow, nor deny that trouble may lie ahead.  Rather it says do not “worry” about tomorrow, and there is a distinct difference between worry and concern.  Specifically worry paralyzes us, but concern calls us to action.  Besides, worry can have devastating impacts on us, including damage to our health, causing the object of worry to consume our thoughts, disrupting our productivity, negatively affecting the way we treat others, and perhaps worst of all inhibiting our ability to trust in God.

Imagine if Dagwood would spend his weekend planning for Monday rather than worrying about it?  Worrying is nothing but time wasted.  But planning is time well spent.  Planning is about thinking ahead, setting goals, determining the steps and scheduling the time – then letting go and trusting God. . . So thank you Dagwood Bumstead for highlighting our own folly, that we may see God’s wisdom more clearly.

“I lift my eyes to the hills –

where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord,

the maker of heaven and earth. 

He will not let your foot slip –

he who watches over you will not slumber;

indeed, he who watches over Israel

will neither slumber nor sleep. 

The Lord watches over you –

the Lord is your shade at your right hand;

the sun will not harm you by day,

nor the moon by night. 

The Lord will keep you from all harm –

he will watch over your life;

the Lord will watch over your coming and going

both now and forevermore.”

–          Psalm 121

O for wisdom and power – to comfort the broken-hearted and the sorrowful, to heal the wounded and sick, to make right the injustices, to give courage to the fearful and strength to the weak, to transform hate into love and anger into peace, to resolve the ever-deepening differences that divide us.   Yet I am woefully deficient.  So in my helplessness I lift my eyes to the hills, toward the One and Only source of Wisdom and Power – the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth, who will not let your foot slip, who watches over each of us and neither slumbers nor sleeps.  Will you join me in these troubling times in our nation and world, and let us lift our eyes to the hills, toward Him who is the source of all wisdom and power?