This is 40.

Happy Gondorian New Year to you ALL!!!

 

Admittedly this blog is a a little belated with my birthday (and the aforementioned ‘Gondorian New Year’) having been on March 25th… give me a break. I’m dealing with the sticker shock of turning the big FOUR-OH.

Can I just say that it came a LOT faster than I ever thought it would. 40. Feels weird in my mouth as I say it… I should be excited, right? Isn’t 40 the new “something?” I could be wrong.  Maybe I was looking on the wrong Pinterest page. (I just referenced Pinterest?! I AM 40!)

This is 4T

This year was probably one of the most low-key birthdays that I have ever had or that I can remember at least. I didn’t hear from a lot of people. Not even saying that’s a bad thing. I didn’t get that usual flood of Facebook posts from ‘friends’ who simultaneously ‘remember’ your birthday right around the noon notification time.

BUT I HAVE 6273 REAL FRIENDS!!!  Right.. RIGHT?!

 

It was really nice this way. After a truly painful and trying year, simple pleasures were the order of the day:

My son got home earlier than I expected from a week long cruise, so I got to see him when I thought I wouldn’t. A friend made me lemon bars. Two college students from my church got me a cool Stormtrooper POP figure.  Lemon bars. On his trip, my son had bought me a Honduras national team jersey.  Lemon bars. My brother (and his kids) found a Flash collectible figure for me that I’d been wanting.  Lemon bars. The usual family tradition of going to out to eat together was observed.  Lemon bars. Finished off the day with Sunday night trivia with good friends… and we got third place!

Did I mention LEMON BARS?

 

All in all a pretty good day.

We naturally tend to see birthdays as milestones of a sort, especially the aughts, and milestones tend to be good times for reflection. And I am nothing if not, at times, endlessly reflective.

While I have you all here… let’s talk about all the feels!

 

Forty feels like a big one so I’ve been taking some time to reflect. Where I’ve been. Where I’m going. And maybe most importantly, where I am. Thinking on various times and decisions in my life from the past forty years and looking toward the upcoming ten to fifteen. (I’m not even sure if that is pessimism or optimism?!)

I know that the Psalmist sings asking that God might “… teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” This is good and true and moreover practical. Perspective is an incredibly important thing.  The ability to see things as they truly are. To not conflate daily troubles that are unrelated and make problems bigger than they need to be. To make sure that we recognize the difference between what is temporary and fleeting in life and what is most constant and important.

Such wisdom is echoed in the words of Socrates, as recorded by Plato, when during his trial he stated, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I don’t think many of us take a step back often enough to really learn to number our days, to see the true importance of each day, and get the perspective that comes from examining our lives.

Usually we are far too busy “living” to look around us to see if we are even truly alive. Not just some “B-Movie” automaton going through the motions and calling it life.

Johnny 5 ISZZZZZZ ALIVE

In many people’s eyes, it may be a step down from an ancient prayer song of Moses or the words of the great historic philosophers… or perhaps a step up depending on your taste in music, but maybe John Lennon was on to something when he crooned to his ‘beautiful boy’ Sean, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.“

So let’s examine a bit.. and see if any wisdom is to be gained or good comes of it.

The first thing I thought when I woke up on the morning of the twenty fifth was that, statistically speaking, my life is more than halfway over. Oh yeah… I’m starting off on a real up beat here. Strap in.

Stats are so fetch

However any of us, myself or you dear reader, feel about it, the numbers speak the truth. The fact that one day there will be more yesterdays behind us than we have tomorrows in front (at least on the corporeal earthly scale). That alone should give a person pause.

You may not be there yet. Or you could be far past the midway point. I suppose the relief we get from the knowledge of this impending ‘mid-point’ of our lives is that we just don’t know when we really reach it.

I am 40… and could very well live to be 120 years old. (I can hear you laughing. What do you mean that spending 75% of everyday in a largely non-active stationary manner and eating whatever I feel like is not a recipe for a long life? I’ll believe that when I die young of heart failure and not a second soon… OH!… THAT is why you were laughing. I get it. Funny.)

You could be 23 and reading this and think “I have plenty of time ahead of me,” when in reality you may not live another week. This truth, which somehow simultaneously possesses the ability to both bring relief AND produce anxiety, is that we just don’t know when our time is up. When all is said and done I don’t, nor do you, know “for whom (or when) the bell tolls.”

“Did you just quote Meallica?” No. Read a book you illiterate cretin.

I used to tell my students that I didn’t want to reach 50-years-old and look back and think that I didn’t give my all to the things that God had called me to do. While, by that measure, I still have a decade of cushion to see where the cards finally fall, when honestly looking back on years past I feel like it is a bit of a mixed bag.

I think that the strangest thing to me is just that almost nothing has worked out the way that I thought it would. I realize that that should not be overly surprising, what with me not being psychic and/or a god, but still it is a shock to the system when trying to reflect on various decisions and how they have played out over the years.

There is a reason that each of those flavors aren’t sold individually.  #Capitalism

 

If you would have asked me when I was 30 what life would look like in ten years my answer would have been pretty simple:

Nothing. I’m dying when I’m 36.

Once you managed to convince me through the use of several cleverly designed charts and graphs and a well timed PowerPoint presentation that there was some infinitesimally small chance I could live past 36, then you might have got an answer like this:

Lindsay and I would be leading a church plant.  Sharing our lives and sharing the gospel. Reaching people and changing lives. Doing important work for our community. A vast majority of my time would consist of prepping for creative and new ways to communicate the gospel and gospel driven ideas. The kids would be growing and involved in their activities and the life of the church. We would be trying to find time to run off and see my son’s college soccer matches. Trying to keep up with my oldest’s daughters social circle. Ferrying the two ‘Littles’ between their friends activities and trusting them to the various Faith Family who helped to raise and love our first two when they were younger. I would be spending a lot of time with those various friends who had become family as well. Figuring out ways to share life in ever deepening ways. Playing games and having laughs and what not. Mostly simple day to day things, but focused around one main purpose.

Needless to say life does not look like that today.

May an intoxicated Mark Zuckerberg get access to your social security number.

That’s ok. As we already established, I’m not God. His ways or not my ways and His thoughts are not my thoughts. This isn’t the first time any prediction on my part of the ensuing decade would be a swing and a miss.

If you would have asked a ten-year-old Brandon what 20 would look like he would have said something along the lines of, “I will be married and living in custom built house on shared land in the Texas countryside with my best friend Michael. I will hunt and fish every single day and make a living as a bee keeper and professional bass fisherman.” That’s right, you guessed it, ten-year-olds are idiots.

If you had asked a 20-year-old Brandon what 30 would have looked like, I think he would have said, “I will be running a Sonic and smelling like a living tator tot. Spending time with Lindsay and usually I spend most nights playing GameStation VIII with Blake, Levi, and Brad and can’t wait to see how awesome Star Wars Episode I and the rest of this new trilogy is going to be! I LOVE GEORGE LUCAS!!” Turns out 20-year-olds are pretty stupid too.

This is a man dying inside.  Never in a million years did I think I would feel sorry for George Lucas.     I was wrong… about a great many things.

Truth be told, when it comes to being 40 and facing a new decade of life, things feel pretty dark and grim some days.

My marriage… is over.  My family… fractured.  My ‘old friends’…. largely absent.

I am in a bit of a valley.  If I am honest, at times I really despair. I don’t enjoy admitting that at all.  My faith tells me that there is no reason to do so.  My pride flairs up and I want to sort of beat my chest and say, “I’ve got this. I don’t need anything or anyone.” That is a laughable lie. After all the yelling and protesting I look around and realized sadly that I’m still down in this valley.

That’s ok.  This is a season in life.  I haven’t always been here and I won’t always be.  Besides, I’ve been told that when God pours out His love the valleys fill first.

We are all going to have times like this in life. Where things aren’t working out. When our tomorrows don’t look like we thought they would. When we just want to give up.

Maybe I should get a tattoo… on my FACE!

Don’t give up.  I’m not.  No one should.  Well maybe George Lucas… I mean, how did he not know Disney would do this?!  But I digress…

Like I said in my previous post, hope is a good thing.

 

We put our hope in the Lord.
He is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
Let your unfailing love surround us, Lord,
for our hope is in you alone. – Psalm 33:20-22

 

Standing here and looking at the next ten, twenty, thirty, and yes, maybe even 40 years… it doesn’t seem too bad as long as I have the Lord at my side. Looking back over the past 40 is not too bad either, when I realize He was there through every up and down.

 

“Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” – Deuteronomy 31:6

 

It is in those truths that I have to continually set my ‘tomorrows’ on. Remembering that I have no reasons to be afraid or to feel alone. Trusting that my hope is always in Him. Believing that life is not “half way over,” but that I have a full life to live each and every day until I have lived all that I have.

When I keep my eyes low and focus on all my problems I start to really struggle and doubt. But when I set my eyes on things above I begin to see that all is not lost. Not by a long shot.

Then I see things like this.. and I want to become an Atheist

 

Thanks for reading this far, if you made it through.

This one was definitely just for me. A chance to get some feelings out and to give a voice to some thoughts that have been rumbling around in my head. Somehow when I write them down and send them out in to the aether they become much more real.

In recent days and weeks things in my relationship with God and ministry have really started taking a step forward. I hope to share some of that with you in the days ahead… and to finally start writing about some of the various “fun” things I started out wanting to write in this blog. I’ll keep trying as I move forward, but no promises on the ‘whens’ and ‘how oftens.’ That way neither of us are disappointed.

I’ll make sure and include COOL graphics too!

 

Forty. It has been a long meandering road to get here. And still the road goes ever on and on. As I continue to walk the path, I have been praying for brighter days and God, as He often does, has been answering. Some yeses and some nos, but answers all the same. At least He is speaking and I’m listening once again. I can be content with that.

“The road and the tale have both been long, would you not say so? The trip has been long and the cost has been high… but no great thing was ever attained easily. A long tale, like a tall Tower, must be built a stone at a time.”

Until the next time around.

B.