Moving Along
By the time this note arrives in your Inbox, it will be a month since Dr. Siadati operated on my unhappy nerve. So far, so good, except that my left foot still splats when I walk. So much for sneaking up on unsuspecting neighbors.
The therapist’s rule still applies for another few weeks: No BLT, i.e. bending, lifting, or twisting. Bacon, lettuce, and tomato are okay, except for the lettuce. Lettuce doesn’t like for me to eat it.
From my vantage point, I’m a model patient. Exemplary even. I could go into business.
But judging from the noises Dianne makes, my perspective may be a minority view. Still, I’m trying my hardest. There are just some things a man’s not good at.
As long as I trust Christ for today’s problems, not tomorrow’s, I keep my wits about me. But if I ponder for long what my future may hold, I forfeit His measure of grace today and my soul tumbles, tears of worry flow, and I fear what may be.
God holds my tomorrow, but He supplies grace only for today.
I’m a master of strategy. That’s why people ask me to guide their business development and leadership initiatives. And, this is necessary when it comes to leading people and running a business, for-profit or nonprofit either one. But when it comes to life, life must be lived all-in each day and done so with vigor and dedication lest we miss out on the mercies and grace supplied by our heavenly Father.
Today is all we’ve got. Tomorrow may never come.
In life, there are no guarantees apart from this moment.
As I wrote in my latest book, Swagger, about three years ago I discovered peace by studying Ecclesiastes with the guiding hand of David Gibson. In a nutshell, Ecclesiastes teaches that the only guarantee in life is death. It is a certainty for each of us even though we don’t know the date of its arrival. While we tend to live as if invincible, today is all we have and the only guarantee is death. Therefore, Ecclesiastes teaches us to embrace the gifts of God today, tomorrow may or may not come to be.
Since death is the only certainty, why not live backward from that eventuality and let death inform the way we live today?
As age re-deals life’s cards, I have returned to Ecclesiastes of late. “Many an ancient palace was built over a dark dungeon. Only Christ can make any life, young or old, truly beautiful or truly happy,” Gibson writes.
Once more, with a future that most certainly does not include some of the activities I love, I’m laboring to rest in the peace of today and relinquish the uncertainty of tomorrow to my Father in heaven.
They say that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, but that’s not certain. Whoever penned the book identifies himself as the Preacher, which is not a bad nom de guerre.
After a long haul, I’m here to report that the Preacher is correct about today, tomorrow, and Father’s gifts: Eat, drink, work hard, and enjoy life with those you love. These are the gifts of God—and they are plenty. Striving for more is futile.
I wonder if our Older Brother had the Preacher’s wisdom in mind when He counseled that we should trust God for today. To paraphrase, He said, “Why worry about tomorrow’s issues today? The birds don’t. The flowers don’t. If God cares for the flowers, which are here today and gone tomorrow; and if He cares for the birds, noting when even a sparrow fails in its flight, won’t He care for you who are more valuable to Him than flowers and birds?”
It’s hard to argue with Jesus. It’s hard to argue with the Preacher. Together, their logic is formidable. Add the gift of faith given to us by God, and it becomes perfectly reasonable to trust God today and leave tomorrow in His hands.
But worry is so enticing, isn’t it? Anxiety feels more real than unseen faith. I can engage stress, work my issues, contemplate my concerns, map my tomorrows.
But faith requires letting go.
Trust places all that matters into hands other than mine—hands that I hold with intangible faith. For me, this feels dangerous, irresponsible, disengaged. “Trust, but verify,” my mentor taught me. That’s good business—but it turns out to be poor theology.
To worry is to believe that I can be somewhere that God is not. The underlying supposition of anxiety is that I can manage better what God has said belongs to Him. To grapple with tomorrow supposes that I have today mastered and that my grasp of tomorrow is more insightful than God’s.
Today is plenty. Tomorrow is unmanageable.
Trusting God with each day’s problems demands the utmost of even the most dedicated soul. Worrying about tomorrow signals denial of my spiritual due diligence today.
Have you watched a Racoon massage a stone by the creek? He turns it this way and that, over and over; dipping it, withdrawing it, flipping it; fumbling, massaging. In the Racoon’s hands, a rock becomes a worry stone.
Worry: managing tomorrow’s stuff—a day and its things—that belong to God. Worry is an illicit temptation suggesting that God is not good—but that you are [good].
Ah, Satan—the Tempter.
Wow. He’s always working the angles, always weaseling in where he is not invited, always advancing his agenda. Always seizing the moment. He’s the consummate narcissist. No matter how many times you say “No!” he persists.
Long, long ago Satan believed he could do better than God—and staged a coup to prove it. While I resent what he did, I understand. Is not every sin a coup?
His future depends on casting sufficient aspersion and doubt upon the character of God to render His reign illegitimate. If successful, he ascends to God’s throne. If unsuccessful, he and his demons spend eternity in a lake of fire.
Desperate odds indeed. But as long as he entices us to hold his hand, he must consider his odds good. The more who endorse and embrace his perspective, the more legitimate his claim and coup seem.
If I was in his boots, I would be desperate as well—desperate enough to take advantage of people living on a fallen planet, desperate enough to afflict the vulnerable, desperate enough to deceive, attack the unsuspecting, murder the innocents, sabotage the best laid plans; desperate enough to lie, cheat, steal, rationalize… desperate enough to trip those who’ve had back surgery and whose tomorrows are doubtful.
I’m grateful for the slice up my spine. The pain requiring the slice was no fun, but the doc did a good job.
Candidly, the slice is not worth seeing. All stitched up, it looked like there was a caterpillar crawling up my back. But not now. The stitches are gone, leaving only a trail. Now there is the honesty of my brace and the admonition of the therapist: “No BLT.” Between the incision, the brace, and the therapist’s words, I have the blessing of a constant reminder that today has sufficient demands to tax my faith and encumber my trust. Today, I’m clear: Leave tomorrow in God’s hands.
One day, perhaps in three weeks’ worth of days, I will lay aside my brace and another therapist will instruct me—no doubt—to begin bending, lifting, and twisting. The pain of stiffness will keep me focused for a time, but as pain’s voice grows more distant and my brace molders in the storage unit, I’m wondering if I will remember tomorrow the lessons learned in these persistent days of compromise?
Dr. Siadati leaned over my hospital bed after surgery and said, “Mr. Gillham, your spine is older than you are. I’ve done all I can do for you. The future is up to you. You must build a new lifestyle or I will meet you back here.”
The doc’s words were not a news flash. My spine and I have jumped, fallen, dived, ridden, skied, carried, bucked, dug, pulled, flown, and driven bad roads all over creation. I know I must reinvent the life my spine and I enjoy. I know as well that moving along I must live each day trusting Father for all I’m worth. Today is plenty.
Tomorrow? We’ll see.
After all, tomorrow never comes. Today is where God’s mercies reside.
But speaking of tomorrow, I’m planning to lay low for a bit longer. There is still a lot of noise in my head. The waves splash and spray more than normal on the rocky shoals of my soul, so my words to you will be fewer and spaced out a bit—for just a little while longer.
Thank you for your prayers on behalf of my chief caretaker. I wonder, but have not asked, if for Dianne some of the shine of “for better or worse, in sickness and in health,” has worn off. She has said that she will never leave me, but she has not ruled out murder.
And thank you for praying for me as well. Please continue. As I promised a long time ago, I will speak to you about the conversations God and I have in hopes my words provide a window through which to view your own discussions with Him. But given my impeded ability to trust, He and I are having the same conversation most evenings.
Know too that you are never far from my mind and discussions with Father God. He assures me that He’s got us.
Keep your wits about you. Until soon.