“I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.” 

– Psalm 40:1 

There’s an old joke about a man praying to God.  “God?” he asked.  “Yes?” the Lord replied.  “Can I ask a question?”  “Of course, go right ahead,” God said.  “God, what is a million years to you?” the man asked.  “Why, a million years to me is only a second,” God answered.  “Hmm,” the man wondered.  Then he asked, “God, what is a million dollars worth to you?”  To which God answered, “A million dollars to me is as a penny.”  The man thought for a moment.  “God,” he asked, “can I have a penny?”  “Sure!” God replied.  “Just a second.”

I’ve never had a big issue with God’s willingness to hear my pleas, nor his assurance to deliver on his promises.  My problem has always been trusting his timing.  In fact, the biggest blunders I’ve made in my life have almost all been the result of impatience.  Instead of waiting patiently for the Lord, I tend to jump the gun and take matters into my own hands, which usually turns out to be a disaster, like the time I became overly anxious for a promotion in my career and jumped the gun, taking another position that instead of advancing my career almost wrecked it.

Waiting patiently for the Lord, however, does not mean putting our lives in neutral and wandering aimlessly wishing something would happen.  No, it is about knowing something will happen, just not the exact timing, and in the meantime to continue to prepare ourselves.

A bewildered young man once entered the seating area of a train station where he noticed a large sign on the wall.  “WAITING ROOM – NO LOITERING,” it said.  Isn’t that a contradiction, he thought?  Except the waiting room is for those who have a ticket, know where they’re going, and expect the train to eventually show up; whereas loiterers have no ticket, no destination, wandering aimlessly with no expectation.  The young man had shown up prepared, with a fully-paid ticket to a specific destination, expecting that the train would eventually show up and take him there.

Older and wiser now – and after many blunders – the words of the Psalmist are slowly starting to sink in, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.”

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” 

– Jeremiah 29:11 

“Strange, isn’t it?  Each man’s life touches so many other lives.”  Clarence the Guardian Angel pointed out to his earthly mentee George Bailey in Frank Capra’s classic movie “It’s A Wonderful Life”.  “When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”  George, if you are familiar with the story, was on the verge of suicide, convinced his life was a failure and that he was worth more dead than alive.  That’s when Clarence, a second-class angel trying to earn his wings, was sent to earth to save him and to show him otherwise.  George, you see, even though life had not turned out for him the way he planned, actually had a wonderful life, had accomplished much in how he had impacted the lives of other people, and how deeply he was loved by his family and community.

George had dreams of one day becoming great, building tall buildings, making fortunes and traveling the world.  He made one mistake, though, like many of us in our early years, the belief that becoming successful at what we do is what defines who we are, when in fact it is the exact opposite.  It is instead who we are that inspires what we do.

One of my favorite friends ever was a man from my hometown named Press Canon who passed away last year at age ninety.  I had the great privilege of being asked to speak at his funeral service, which was not surprisingly a packed house.  Press had made his living as an auto mechanic.  He was the go-to person to get your car repaired, who you could always depend on for getting it done right.  But being a great mechanic did not define who Press was; rather, it was who Press was that made him to be a great mechanic, for his first concern was always the person he was serving, not the car he was repairing.

Clarence the Angel came to teach George Bailey what Press Canon already knew, how “each man’s life touches so many others.”  But most of all Press knew his Plan-Maker and source of his prosperity.  And though a modest man as measured by financial success, Press followed the plans laid out for him and became the richest man in town. 

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”

“I will rain down bread from heaven for you.  The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day.”  – Exodus 16:4

In the Exodus story, after crossing the Red Sea, God provided food for the Israelites by raining down bread (manna) from heaven.  But there was a rule that they must gather only what they need for that day and no more.  “No one is to keep any of it until morning,” Moses instructed them.  “However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell.”

What happened with the Israelites thousands of years ago also applies to us today when we collect too much stuff.  I recall several years ago in our previous home having gone into the attic for something when I noticed a dusty box sitting off in the farthest corner. Curious, I crawled over to retrieve it and discovered it contained a set of dishes from my grandmother’s house.  For eighteen years it had been sitting there!

It made me realize how attached we all have become to stuff – myself included – how our need for security has led us to an insane obsession for hanging on to things.  Though sentimental, I realized I didn’t need cups and saucers to help me remember my wonderful grandmother.  Yet, for eighteen years what could have been put to greater use by someone else sat hoarded away in a dusty box in my attic.

Giving away those dishes, along with many other unused stored-away items, was a liberating event.  It was a lesson in the freedom to be found through simplicity.  As Richard Foster states so well in his book Celebration of Discipline, “Simplicity sets us free to receive the provision of God as a gift that is not ours to keep and can be freely shared with others.”

As with the Israelites, when we collect too much stuff and hoard things we no longer use or need, it is destined to nothing more than collecting dust, to rust, tarnish, rot, or in our fashion-conscious culture becoming out of style – even becoming infested with rodents or bugs like the manna kept until morning.  But when we keep only what we need, then we are set free from our insane attachment to things, and set free “to receive the provision of God as a gift.”

“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”  – Proverbs 27:17 

During my investment banking days, I once got into a heated debate with my boss about the performance of a certain individual in our firm, who my boss considered invaluable because of his genius bond trading ability.  While I could not disagree about his superior skills, the problem was he made enemies with almost everyone with whom he came in contact, which I argued was costing the firm more than his genius produced.

The problem with genius, Liz Wiseman explains in her brilliant book, Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, is that some seem “to drain intelligence and capability out of the people around them.  Their focus on their own intelligence and their resolve to be the smartest person in the room has a diminishing effect on everyone else’s.”  Others, however, use “their intelligence as a tool rather than a weapon.  They apply their intelligence to amplify the smarts and capability of people around them.”  Wiseman refers to the former as “diminishers” due to their tendency to be “so absorbed in their own intelligence that they stifle others and dilute the organization’s crucial intelligence and capability.”  The latter she labels as “multipliers” who bring out “the intelligence in others, creating collective, viral intelligence in their organization.  One leader is a genius.  The other is a genius maker.”

This whole concept she cleverly summarizes in the opening chapter of the book with a quote by Irish rock star Bono.  “It has been said,” Bono states, “that after meeting with the great British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, you left feeling he was the smartest person in the world, but after meeting with his rival Benjamin Disraeli, you left thinking you were the smartest person in the world.”

Gladstone and Disraeli were both indisputably genius leaders in their time.  But if one was a “diminisher” and the other a “multiplier” – that is, one purely genius versus the other a genius maker – which do you suppose had the greater and longer-lasting impact?  And that, fundamentally, was the argument I was having with my boss that day.  Certainly, the bond trader’s genius was to be applauded and rewarded, but how much more could have been produced by his genius had he been a multiplier rather than a diminisher?  For, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”

“Behold, I make all things new.”  Revelations 21:5 

As has been my custom these past thirteen years, Issue 50 will be the final edition of Abundant Living for 2017.  So, I take this opportunity to wish all of you, my faithful readers, supporters and encouragers, a blessed Christmas and holiday season with these final thoughts: 

It is not known the exact time of Jesus’ birth, which has created much speculation throughout the centuries, along with extensive scholarly research.  December 25, of course, eventually became the settled-upon date for celebrating the birth of our Lord, but no one seems to know for sure why that day was chosen either.  There are, however, several factors that may have influenced the choice.  One source I read theorized, “December 25 was the date the Romans marked as the winter solstice, the shortest and darkest day of the year, and the first day in which the days would begin to elongate, and the sun would have a longer presence in the sky.  Jesus was identified with the ‘sun’ based on an Old Testament verse [from the Book of Malachi], and the date [25^th] is exactly nine months following the Annunciation, when the conception of Jesus is celebrated.”  Several other theories exist, but no one knows for sure.

Regardless how it came about, what I find curiously fascinating about December 25 is its one-week proximity to New Year’s Day, such that in our modern world we have tended to lump them together.  I doubt that was intentional in the beginning, but perhaps through the increasing commercialization and secularizing of Christmas it has simply evolved into an extended celebration.  We say, “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” in one breath, and commonly refer to this time of year as the “Holiday Season”, as if it were all one singular event.

The great irony is that they should be lumped together, for both events celebrate new beginnings.  The difference is that New Year’s places the burden on us to begin anew, why we make New Year’s resolutions.  Christmas, on the other hand, places the burden on a Babe in a manger who offers new beginnings, restoring our relationship with God.  New Year’s resolutions are a sure failure.  But the Babe in the manger is a sure thing, for He is the one who proclaims, “Behold, I make all things new.”