This Is Forty
Today is my fortieth birthday.
The picture above was taken thirty years ago, when I was ten.
Ten years ago, I was thirty.
Ten years from now, I’ll be fifty.
FIFTY.
Folks have always been telling me something that I’ve now found myself to be true: life moves fast.
Today, I'm reflecting: What am I learning? What is my life about? What do I believe?
Three things.
There are three truths that I’m holding onto these days. Three insights I’ve learned not from books or from others but from my own experiences (experiences that are of course shaped by books and by others).
I believe my life is about these three things. This is what I believe, and because I have the privilege of leading and teaching others, this is what my ministry is about.
These three things are my mission, my focus, and my direction. I really believe that.
First, I believe in silence, stillness, and solitude.
In stillness is my strength. I know that anything important I will achieve will come from quieting my soul and just sitting before God. I have learned that John 15 is both a promise and warning: “I am the vine, and you are the branches. If you abide in me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
Creativity comes from silence, and hope from from stillness.
The biggest challenge of my life, though, is learning how to be still. Nothing else comes close.
Second, I believe in responsibility.
I’ve become more and more convinced that passivity is the primal temptation lurking in the heart of man. I face that temptation toward passivity every day, and my forties will be defined by my decisions to either take or shirk responsibility for my life and my family and for the people around me.
Third, I believe in the simplicity on the far side of complexity.
The simplicity this side of complexity is naive and foolish. This kind of simplicity wants neat answers with no remainders, shuts its eyes to inconvenient truths, and trades in polite lies.
The simplicity that is on this side of complexity is not worth a bucket of warm spit.
This is because life doesn’t easily provide neat answers, is full of inconvenient truths, and resists pat answers and platitudes.
It’s good, therefore, to move beyond the simplicity that lies on this side of complexity and to make your way into complexity itself.
But it’s not good to stay there. When you reach complexity, you need to keep going until you come out the other side.
You see, there is a simplicity on the far side of complexity that acknowledges that while life is certainly grey—not black and white—and certainly mysterious, there is still solid ground to stand on once you reach the other side.
You’ll know when you’ve reached the simplicity on the far side of complexity when you’ve examined all the hard questions and inconvenient details and come up with an answer that includes those things and yet provides clarity and a way forward.
Hot water from the tap is a simplicity that lies on the far side of complexity. Think of all the difficulties that have to be acknowledged and overcome to produce that everyday miracle of civilization.
The Constitution of the United States is a simplicity that lies on the far side of complexity. Think of all the insights into human nature that had to be acknowledged and overcome to produce that remarkable document.
“Here I stand: I can do no other.” Martin Luther’s famous declaration is a simplicity that lies on the far side of complexity. Think of all the wrestlings with God through an untold number of sleepless nights it cost Luther before he had the kind of clarity for which he was willing to die.
The simplicity on the far side of complexity can be big or small; it can be life-and-death or just a bit of everyday insight; it can be the result of centuries of slow technological advances (like the iPhone) or it can come flashing forth from revelation (like the Great Commandment).
But in whatever form it comes, it’s always beautiful and compelling.
And the simplicity on the far side of complexity is worth whatever it costs to learn.
This is forty, and this is what my life is about: learning and leading to the simplicity on the far side of complexity, where we experience the beautiful grace of God.