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“You armed me with strength for battle; you made my adversaries bow at my feet.”

• Psalm 18:39 

Timmy Newsome, the great former running back for the Dallas Cowboys – also a great human being I might add – in reflecting on his life and football career once remarked that he was never intimidated by lost yardage on a play, because there was always an opportunity to make it up on the next one.  I had the privilege of becoming acquainted with Timmy while working together in a non-profit endeavor which is when I heard him make that comment.  Upon hearing him say that it occurred to me that that was the differentiator that launched him into the pros over others who also had great ability.

Likewise, there are a lot of excellent golfers around, but only an elite few become PGA winners.  The distinction between the amateurs and pros is not that the pros necessarily hit fewer bad shots that put them in difficult predicaments; rather the differentiator is how well they recover from those predicaments – dealing with the adversities they encounter.  (Notably, we witnessed just this past week Tiger Wood’s miraculous return to the Masters Tournament following a crippling auto accident only months prior.)

How critical is dealing with adversity?  According to my airline pilot friends, the frequent flight simulator training and testing they are required to undergo has less to do with the basics of normal takeoffs, landings, and flying the aircraft, than responding to adverse situations.  Most experienced professional pilots can fly a plane with their eyes closed.  But what they must practice over and over is how to react when things go awry.

In my youth I had dreams of a perfect life, perhaps you did too – perfect job, perfect home, perfect family, perfect everything.  But life doesn’t work that way, does it?  “In this world you will have trouble,” Jesus reminds us (John 16:33).  Adversity is inevitable.

What separates an abundant life from a tragic one is neither an absence of adversity nor the severity of it; rather it is how we deal with it when it occurs.  So, if you are living an abundant life it is because you know how to react when things go awry, how to recover from the hazards of life and scramble out of tight situations – and most importantly, knowing the One who armed you with the strength to do so in the first place.

“Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.” – Romans 15:2 

Perhaps you remember or have seen reruns of the TV series Bonanza, one of television’s most popular and longest running Westerns.  Among the characters Hoss Cartwright, played by Dan Blocker, was always my favorite.  Hoss, the middle son of wealthy rancher and patriarch Ben Cartwright, was a giant of man (in real life Dan Blocker, a former college football star, stood six-feet-four-inches and weighed 300 pounds), though a gentle-giant with a heart as big as his stature.  Hoss would never have harmed a flea, unless provoked into standing up for someone else.  He was one of those guys who could walk in a saloon and if a brawl started up he was easily capable of singlehandedly whipping every cowboy in the place, except he would first try anything to avoid violence until it became the only option.  Otherwise, Hoss was just a big old teddy-bear who out of genuine compassion and quiet humility would do anything to help others.

Such is not always the motive behind good deeds.  I recall going on my first trip to Central America a number of years ago to do mission work.  Indisputably the work we did was good and helpful to the people we were engaged with.  But I must confess to being a bit quick to pat myself on the back, and in so many words letting others know what a generous human being I am, not exactly in the same spirit as Hoss Cartwright.

In his classic book Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster warns of the distinction between “self-righteous” service and true service.  Self-righteous service, he says, comes through calculated human efforts to “help those people,” while true service is borne out of whispered promptings, and divine urgings.  Self-righteous service is impressed with the “big deal”, while true service does not distinguish between small and large service.  Self-righteous service needs to know that people see and appreciate the effort, while true service is contented with hiddenness (humility).

Eventually, working alongside my fellow, more experienced missionaries I began to understand the distinctions and my arrogance deflated a bit.  As the Apostle Paul instructed, “Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.”  I repeat, for his good, to build him up, not for my good, to build me up – as exemplified by the character of that gentle-giant Hoss Cartwright.

“The integrity of the upright guides them . . .”  – Proverbs 11:3 

When we first started working together I was immediately impressed by my new colleague’s work ethic and intellect, two critical ingredients for being a successful business person.  In addition, after hours he often spent evenings meeting with a group of business partners involved in an outside venture of investing in commercial real estate.  Given all this, his work ethic, discipline, and brilliant mind, I was convinced this new work colleague of mine, was destined to become a wealthy man.  And did I mention he was also a really good human being who loved his family and had lots of friends?

Then suddenly, almost overnight it seemed, just as he and his investment partners were on the verge of making a killing on their holdings, the commercial real estate market collapsed, leaving them with nothing except debt up to their eyeballs.  Seeing no way to pay it off his partners chose to simply walk away, leaving their lenders holding the bag.  My colleague disagreed, choosing instead a different path and parting ways with his partners.  Rather, he felt bound to fulfill his debt obligation (there is a reason it is called a “promissory” note, so he believed), which as it turned out took him most of his remaining working years to pay off, besides sacrificing his chance to become the wealthy man he had once dreamed of, and as I had predicted he would.  But through that sacrifice he gained something far more admirable, proving himself to be a man of great integrity.

As the Proverb states, “the integrity of the upright guides them,” implying that those who desire to live honestly make choices based on what is true rather than what is expedient.  So, while my colleague’s partners chose the expedient route by leaving the lenders holding the bag, my friend chose what was true by upholding the promises he had made.

Integrity – not only is it the right way to live, but it also offers a better life.  Consider my colleague, always a jovial fellow, who over the many years I have known him seldom mentioned his misfortune, although it must surely cross his mind from time to time what might have been.  But for him it was a bump in the road about which he made the right choice, one that provided peace of mind, and a good life for he and his family.

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”  – Matthew 7:1 

One of the first people I met when I went off to college was a guy named Ralph who lived down the hall in the same dorm.  Ralph grew up in Houston where he had graduated from a large well-funded high school.  I, on the other hand, came from a small rural community in northwest Texas where resources were more limited.  I liked Ralph at first, until we got into a squabble about the quality of education we had received from our respective high schools, his being superior he claimed since his school was surely better resourced.  It was an insult, whether he meant it to be or not.  Plus, I also knew that what our school lacked in resources was made up for in work ethic and determination.

Fast forward many, many years later, Tee and I were in Montana on a hiking and fishing excursion where we hired a fishing guide named Peter to take us fly-fishing.  Peter told us that he had retired from teaching school and coaching basketball in a small community in Alaska that was accessible only by small aircraft, which is also how his team traveled to compete with other schools.  In the course of the conversation I could not help but ask what became of those kids from such a remote place after they graduated high school, implying, much like Ralph, that they must have been disadvantaged by having such limited resources (without realizing it, putting the shoe on the other foot!).

To my amazement Peter began to tell stories about students he had taught who had been accepted to Ivy League schools, medical schools, law schools, West Point and Annapolis.  Who would have imagined?  It made me wish I had kept up with Ralph so I could tell him stories about the people I grew up with in Paducah, Texas who went on to become doctors and lawyers, successful business-people and leaders of organizations, nurses and teachers, fine citizens and community leaders and volunteers.

The problem with judging is the likelihood of misjudging, as we are seeing before our very eyes in the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine where Russian leadership has clearly misjudged the Ukrainian people in their resourcefulness and determination to defend themselves.  Jesus warns, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”  Likewise, we should be careful not to misjudge, for neither do we want to be misjudged.  I should know, having been both victim of one and guilty of the other.    

“. . . Love your neighbor as yourself.”  – Matthew 22:39 

For the past two years the world has suffered the worst pandemic in over a hundred years, claiming the lives of an estimated six million people worldwide.  Couple that with increasing rates of violent crime, an epidemic of drug abuse, rising rates of suicide, political turmoil, the highest inflation rate in forty years, not to mention the attack on Ukraine by its Russian neighbor, a move that places a threat on the rest of the world unlike any since World War II.  “These are the times that try men’s souls,” as Thomas Paine famously wrote in his 1776 pamphlet series, The American Crisis.

Indeed, it feels as if we are living in such times, doesn’t it?  Even worse is the helplessness we feel in fixing these things – to heal those stricken with COVID and stop its spread, to reduce crime and the flow of illegal drugs, treat mental illness, encourage our political leaders to work together, and all this as we pray for the Ukrainian people and a just and peaceful resolution to this bloody invasion.  “But what can I do,” we ask ourselves, “as these problems are beyond my capacity to help?”

During my corporate days, one year as we approached year’s end the fine people on my team suggested that rather than squandering money on each other at Christmas that perhaps we might instead pool those resources to help someone in need.  So, for the next few weeks we collected and purchased food, clothing, and other necessities including toys for the children, for a family we had identified.  Then, one crisp December afternoon we all went as a group to deliver their gifts.  One team member even dressed as Santa, providing a special treat for the small children in the family.  Sometime later the word got out about what we had done, so when the next year rolled around others outside our team wanted to participate, thus adding more resources so we were able to help two families instead of one, and the following year three, as our outreach project grew.

There seems to be an unexplainable miracle that occurs when you “love your neighbor as yourself,” a ripple effect that impacts others beyond what you ever imagined.  Helping others can be infectious in such a way that even in these times that are trying our souls, simple kindness to those who cross our paths can “ripple” far beyond what we can see or imagine – maybe even to those as far away as Ukraine.