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“. . . seek and you will find.”  – Matthew 7:7 

While hiking up a heavily wooded mountainside trail in Yellowstone Park several years ago, Tee and I were about to turn back when we noticed a steep, narrow path veering off in another direction.  Feeling adventurous we decided to see where it would lead.  As we climbed higher and the woods became more dense apprehension set in, again tempting us to turn around.  Having become exhausted, we started to question the wisdom of our decision to follow that trail in the first place. Then suddenly a clearing appeared up ahead, and in just a mere few steps we emerged onto the most gorgeous mountain meadow one could ever imagine, with breath-taking views in all directions.

“Two roads diverged in a wood,” we were reminded from Robert Frost’s familiar poem “and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” 

Not all “less traveled” paths lead to such a beautiful sight.  In fact, many do not.  Some get us lost; others are dead ends, while many turn out to be long disappointing detours.  One thing is for certain, though; if we keep driving the same busy freeways and never venture to exit onto unfamiliar roads from time to time our lives will remain mundane and routine.  Only when we try things new and different will we ever discover things new and different.

Try getting up at 3 a.m. – on purpose! – just to experience what the world is like in that wee hour.  Drive a different route to work.  Turn on a street that you’ve always been curious where it goes.  Try a new recipe for dinner.  For your next vacation plan a trip someplace you’ve never been.  Do something you’ve never done but always wanted to try.  You may be surprised what you discover – about yourself and the world around you.

“Seek and you will find,” Jesus urged us.  But seeking requires action, and sometimes choosing the road less traveled.  It happened to us one day in Yellowstone when we chose to explore a steep, narrow, densely wooded mountain path, and it led us to the most glorious sight we had ever seen.  As the poet said, we took the road less traveled by, and that made all the difference.

“I press on toward the goal to win the prize . . .”  Philippians 3:14 

When I entered my freshman year of high school I had a dream.  That dream was to earn, as a freshman, a varsity letter jacket in a sport, any sport, didn’t matter which one.  For a little shrimp of guy like me with only modest athletic ability it was a tall order, or what Jim Collins refers to in his book Good to Great as a BHAG, a Big Hairy Audacious Goal.  To compound the challenge I didn’t play football, freshmen were relegated to the junior varsity basketball squad, and our school did not have a baseball team at the time, which left only one sport – track, and I wasn’t very fast.  I did have, though, enough endurance to run long distance races, which was my only hope.  But despite my hard work and diligent training I still fell short, never so much as even placing in a single race.  So, by the end of my freshman year my big dream became a bust, and I was heartbroken.

Then one day during summer break the doorbell rang.  I answered the door and there to my surprise stood Coach Higdon holding a box.  “What’s this?” I asked as he presented it to me.  “It’s your letter jacket,” he replied.  “But, but I didn’t . . .” I stammered.  “It’s for golf,” he explained with a smile before I could finish my sentence.  Golf?  I had forgotten all about that, didn’t know anyone paid attention to golf or even considered it a varsity sport.  “You guys won the district championship in golf, remember?  That earned you a letter jacket.”  I was speechless!  But it was true, we were the first golf team our school ever had and by some miraculous stroke of fate we had won the district championship – and my dream, my BHAG, had come true after all.  After the coach left I carried my new letter jacket into my room where, all alone, I buried my face in it and wept.

Dreams and BHAGs are sometimes fulfilled in unexpected ways.  “We shake the apple tree,” Julia Cameron says in her book The Artist’s Way, “but sometimes the universe delivers oranges.”  The point being, of course, to keep shaking the apple tree – to keep dreaming big dreams and setting BHAGs for ourselves – but don’t be surprised if the payoff comes in unexpected ways, sometimes in ways we never imagined.  Mine did, and I have kept the letter from that jacket to remind me, not about golf which I don’t even play anymore, but the importance to “press on toward the goal to win the prize”.

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

Most of the major mistakes I have made in my life can be traced back to a common human weakness, impatience and acting too hastily, and taking matters into my own hands.  That goes from speaking out of turn, saying the wrong things, or hurting someone by something I’ve said, to making poor choices, to bad strategic decisions both in life and in business.  Impatience can blind us from our ability to reason clearly and to maintain faith that the right actions and best solutions will occur when the time is right.

The story of Abraham and Sarah is a perfect example.  God, you may recall, had promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations.  Yet he and his wife Sarah, who were advancing in years, remained childless despite God’s promise.  Eventually they became impatient and took matters into their own hands.  Sarah’s handmaid thus became the mother of Abraham’s son, Ishmael.  Except, they had acted hastily, for this was not the son God intended for them.  Finally, when Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 God did give them their son, Isaac, the one who he had promised.  All they had needed to do was “be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.”

Many years ago, when my career was on the rise I became impatient that opportunities for advancement were not coming my way fast enough.  Then an offer came I thought would be the answer to my longing for super success.  Instead my impatience had blinded me from thinking clearly, and my faith had faltered in believing that better opportunities might be in store.  The result was that acting hastily I made a bad strategic decision that almost destroyed my career.  But, as with Abraham and Sarah, that better opportunity did come along in due time, which restored my career back to the right trajectory.  In retrospect, it would have saved me a lot of pain if I had remained patient.

My grandchildren love to bake cookies with their grandmother.  But inevitably around age two they all do the same thing, they grab the cookie cutter out of Grantee’s hand then announce predictably, “I do it myself!”  You can imagine what comes next – a big mess, flour, sugar and cookie dough all over the floor.  But aren’t we all like two-year-olds in a way, impatient and acting hastily, taking matters into our own hands, then making a big mess?  If only we would learn to “be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.”

“But I tell you the truth:  It is for your own good that I am going away.”  – John 16:7 

“You’re on your own.”  Have you ever heard those words?  Of course, we all have.  I’m reminded of Sammy, the crusty old foreman in the metal shop where I worked during college.   My first day on the job Sammy took me around to the various machines and taught me how to operate each one.  Only, he didn’t exactly teach, he simply demonstrated the procedure – once! – then sort of muttered as he walked away, “you’re on your own.”  After several blunders I finally figured it out, but it surely would have been easier if Sammy had hung around a little longer before leaving me on my own.

One of the great “you’re on your own” stories involved the prophet Elijah who had taken on Elisha as his apprentice.  “When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind,” scripture says, “Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal.  Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Stay here; the Lord has sent me to Bethel.’  But Elisha said, ‘As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.’  So they went down to Bethel.”  Elijah tried the same trick to leave Elisha “on his own” two other times – once to Jericho and another to the river Jordan – but Elisha cleverly clung to his mentor as long as he could until being promised a double portion of Elijah’s spirit; whereupon a chariot of fire separated them and Elijah was swept away to heaven in a whirlwind.  After that, Elisha was left “on his own” for sure.  (Source:  2 Kings 2)

It’s the story of all our lives where our various teachers and mentors – parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches, pastors, bosses – for whom we served as apprentice go away, leaving us on our own.  Yet, as Elisha did with Elijah we try to cling to them as long as we can, not wanting to give up the comfort and safety of their wisdom.

It is only natural that we cling to our teachers and mentors as long as we can, but the time will inevitably come when they are no longer available to lead, guide and advise us.  “But I tell you the truth:  It is for your own good that I am going away,” Jesus said to his disciples as he prepared them to be on their own.  In the same way, Sammy prepared me to operate those machines on my own.  So, we must in turn teach and mentor the next generations in the proper ways, preparing them also to one day be on their own.

“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”  – Luke 12:25 

The late comedian George Burns who remained active up until the very end of his life at age 100 often boasted jokingly about his daily consumption of a good cigar and a martini.  Wouldn’t we all love to shatter the longevity odds as he did and still indulge in our favorite unhealthy habit on a daily basis – whether it be ice cream, Snicker Bars, chips, sodas, or even martinis and cigars?  Few of us can count on such luck I’m afraid.  The best we can hope for is that occasional moderate imbibing might result in minimal harm.  During a rare serious moment in his autobiography even George Burns admitted that there were probably other factors that contributed to his longevity besides his daily dose of martinis and cigars.  One had to do with his response to worry.  An example occurred in his late eighties when he was facing open-heart bypass surgery.  When asked if he was worried about the surgery he responded “no”, that was the doctor’s problem not his.

I grew up in a farming community, and let me assure you that farmers have a lot to worry about.  They work long, hard, tedious hours improving their property, maintaining machinery, learning new methods, preparing and planting their fields, then nurturing their crops to ensure they are not overtaken by weeds or eaten by insects.  The remainder of the process, though, depends on the forces of nature over which they have no control, leaving plenty of opportunity for worry.  Yet many of the seasoned farmers I knew learned to handle it the same way as George Burns.  Once they had done all they could do it became the problem of the One who controls nature, not theirs.  Thus most of them managed to live long fulfilling lives in spite of the uncertainties of their profession.

No one’s life is exempt from problems and concerns.  Yet if we allow ourselves to be overcome by worry it can immobilize us; it can damage our health, consume our thoughts, disrupt our productivity, negatively impact the way we treat others, and reduce our ability to trust in God and in others.  Or we can work hard and do all we can then let the rest of it become the doctor’s problem, or nature’s problem – or better yet, the problem of the One who controls all things.  When we do we still may not live as long as George Burns, but there’s a better chance we might live as well as he did.  Besides, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”