Volume 1. No. 6.
As we head into November and the Thanksgiving season, I'm grateful for each of you who reads these monthly notes. A couple of weeks ago I spent a few rich days in Dallas with leaders from around the world, and some of what I took away from that time is below.
November's collection of thoughts, quotes, and ideas touches on themes of leadership in the second half of life, joy, fear, marriage, and sorrow & serenity. I hope it proves timely for someone.
Worth Sitting With:
On Leadership
A couple of weeks ago, I spent a few days at Dallas Theological Seminary with Dr. Michael Ortiz and more than 30 presidents and senior leaders of global pastoral and leadership training organizations that are part of the International Council for Evangelical Theological Education (ICETE). While I was there, someone mentioned that Chuck Swindoll believes the "sweet spot" of ministry is between the ages of 55 and 85.
I tend to agree, and here's why.
By the time you reach 55, you have about 30 years of experience (or lots of mistakes) to season you. You're typically more emotionally intelligent and more settled in your identity. You're less fearful and less anxious. You've matured (hopefully), and you're more rooted and at peace.
You're also more focused. You know what you're good at and what you're not. You're ready to leverage all the education, experience, gifts, talents, abilities, and resources God has entrusted to you in the best way possible for the next three decades of life.
And if God gives you good health until 95 (like Warren Buffett, who stepped down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of last year at age 95), you'll have four decades after 55. If you're 55 right now, imagine what God could do through you over the next 40 years if you steward well all he's entrusted to you.
I believe one key to being used even more in the second half of life is to never stop learning. Keep reading, keep growing, and keep challenging yourself, not just spiritually, but mentally, emotionally, and physically. Resist the urge to settle. Resist gravity. Feed yourself fresh "manna" from God's Word each day.
Lest I be misunderstood, this doesn't mean the season between 25 and 55 isn't important, or that God can't or won't use you significantly during those decades. He certainly can and does. And if you're 25 right now and God gives you the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health to reach 95, you have another 70 years to invest for his glory. Play the long game. Life is a marathon, not a 100-meter sprint.
On Joy
I don’t know this for a fact, but I believe my wife, Lisa, was born on a sunny day. She has her middle name (Joy) deep in her bones. Through the years, even through much physical pain and suffering that she has lived with for decades, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing her joy firsthand.
These few paragraphs from David Brooks describe her well:
“Every once in a while, I meet a person who radiates joy. These are people who seem to glow with an inner light. They are kind, tranquil, delighted by small pleasures, and grateful for the large ones.
These people are not perfect. They get exhausted and stressed. They make errors in judgment. But they live for others, and not for themselves. They've made unshakable commitments to family, a cause, a community, or a faith. They know why they were put on this earth and derive a deep satisfaction from doing what they have been called to do. Life isn't easy for these people. They've taken on the burdens of others. But they have a serenity about them, a settled resolve. They are interested in you, make you feel cherished and known, and take delight in your good.
When you meet these people, you realize that joy is not just a feeling, it can be an outlook. There are temporary highs we all get after we win some victory, and then there is also this other kind of permanent joy that animates people who are not obsessed with themselves but have given themselves away.”
— David Brooks, The Second Mountain
On Marriage
“…I think it is so crucial that single and married people have a sense that in this fallen, sinful, damaged, disordered, afflicted, beleaguered, partially redeemed world, the expectations for marriage should be modest. As the vows say: ‘For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health.’
Marriage is a home of ecstasy and agony: peaceful and embattled; growing in understanding and often utterly baffled; a place of fulfilled dreams and heart-wrenching disappointments, sweetest satisfactions and exasperating frustrations; a bond where you can weep at being apart and dread being together. No one makes you happier; no one makes you more angry.”
— John Piper
Read the full article from Desiring God here:
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/the-marriage-miracle-that-takes-time
On Charity
"In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity."
On Sorrow and Serenity
Randy Alcorn, reflecting on the death of his wife, Nanci, writes:
“If I have learned anything in these four and a half years Nanci has been with Jesus, and the years that led up to her death, it is that I can simultaneously feel great sorrow and grief and yet feel that sorrow eclipsed by the greater joy that Jesus gives.”
I like this longer version of the ‘Serenity Prayer':
God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
If I surrender to His Will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next.
Amen.
Grace & Peace,
