Zoom In/Zoom Out -

We are exceptionally prone to tunnel vision - to navel gazing and all forms of self-absorption.  It's understandable when you consider how busy most of us are.  But it is sub-optimal and will soon have us living well below our calling.   In his book "Start with Why", Simon Sinek says:

"Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do what they do. By WHY I mean your purpose, cause or belief - Why does your organisation exist?  WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care?"

Management consultants and life coaches have taken to Sinek's philosophies like ducks to water.  One strategist likened the "WHY" question to the "view from 30 000ft".  This is the cruising altitude of a passenger aeroplane and it's the altitude at which, depending on the light, you can sometimes even discern the earth's curvature.

Our busy lives however tend to restrict our altitude to100ft - that's about 30 metres from the ground.  We are hardly clear of the trees and power lines at this elevation.  To use Sinek's analogy...we are stuck in the WHAT.  We need to learn the difference between "zooming in" and "zooming out".

The Proverbs 31 "woman" appears to have found the balance between her WHY and WHAT she knows when to Zoom...  Look at verse 19:

She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle.

The picture is of someone living in the WHAT - living at 100ft.  Intense focus, razor-sharp concentration.  Commitment to the task

But now let's look at the very next verse

"She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy"

What a juxtaposition!  What amazing flexibility:  "hands to the distaff and spindle", almost in a heartbeat give way to "open hands" and hands that "reach out" to meet the needs of others.  Our Proverbs 31 Woman toggles effortlessly between "zooming in and zooming out", between WHAT and WHY.   The first is lived out in light of the second.

Our church Vision is a coherent unity of WHY and WHAT.  Are you as clear on your own?   

Proverbs 31 and the meaning of work

Two things that jump out at me in Proverbs 31:10-31 are references to "flax and linen" (vs 13, 22) as well as to work that involves "distaff and spindle" (vs 19).  Clearly, this was inspired by someone involved in the arduous work of making fabric from plant matter.

When Lisa and I got married, a relative in Ireland sent us a tablecloth made out of pure linen.  It had been manufactured artisanally in a private facility somewhere in the countryside outside Dublin.  Everybody who sees that tablecloth comments on what a privilege it is to own real linen.  That's because it has been manufactured by hand from flax, a blue-flowered plant whose stalks are slowly processed over time to produce the linen fibre.  I didn't know a thing about this until I Googled how the transformation of flax to linen takes place.  I won't bore you with the details - (and you can click here to read up on itself yourself) - but simply put - it is an arduous, time-consuming and smelly process that stretches out over weeks.  It requires patience, focus and as manual labour goes, is very tough on the hands.

Interestingly, this is work that our Proverbs 31 steward has chosen to do.  She could have settled on the housework but for some reason, she deemed this burdensome industry worthy of her time and effort.  There are a few lessons we can take from this in our Journey to becoming better stewards:

There's more to work than a job description

While manufacture of linen was chiefly a woman's job, practitioners of this trade were highly sought after and respected in society and commercial circles.  This was unusual given the general attitude to women at the time.  A good steward has a keen sense of the tasks God has called them to do and the gifts entrusted to them to perform it.  In this way, their job becomes a sacred duty and they will stop at nothing to excel in it.  For more inspiration on this, look at Oholiab and Bezalel, two of the most distinguished persons in the book of Exodus (Chapter 31).  In supervising the construction of the Tabernacle we see two men whose earthly skills were utterly sublimated for Kingdom purposes.

All work - when done as to God - is a noble and priestly act

The Proverbs 31 steward trades in a much sought after commodity.  According to the BibleHistory.com, Linen was used chiefly for priestly garments and for the clothing of people of distinction.  It was rare and expensive, a luxury in every sense.  Where a simple sheepskin might have sufficed in the bedroom, our Proverbs 31 steward "makes coverings for her bed" out of Linen.  Where an everyday garment might have done the trick, she dresses herself and her family " in fine linen and purple" (the colour of royalty).  She is not so much defined by her job description as by the nobility it confers on her.  As children of the Highest, we ought to take a similar view.  Perhaps Proverbs 22:29 puts it best:

 "Do you see someone skilled in their work? They will serve before kings; they will not serve before officials of low rank".  

All work is ministry

In verse 32 we learn that our steward not only clothes her household in linen, she actually trades in the fabric and supplies "merchants with sashes (aprons)" (vs 24).  When ships arrived in port laden with merchandise, the captains and officers would don special aprons before trading commenced.  The functional purpose of these was to have a place to store money so that both hands could be free for hefting goods.  In such a case, a leather apron was usually sufficient.  But in the case of the Phonecians (the trading heavyweights of the era), Linen aprons embroidered with Gold fibre and even jewels were worn to confer prestige and honour on the wearer.  The work of a true steward literally acts as a channel for God to adorn people with his beauty.  Our work should uplift people, capacitate people, help them go further than they would have had they not engaged us or hired us

In what ways does the "Proverbs 31 woman" change the way you see your work? 

Stewarding Opportunity

With each reading, we discover more about the intriguing "Proverbs 31 woman" who I spoke about last Sunday.  If you're reading this for the first time, you may want to read the intro and the second post to understand why I'm using apostrophes.  Suffice it to say, this truly is a remarkable human being.  In this post, I look at how she uses her time and how much discernment she brings in choosing the type of work she does.

I once heard it said that Christians should have "both hands full".  I was uneasy with the statement as it suggested a lifestyle of being overworked.  In his book "Essentialism: the disciplined pursuit of Less", Greg McKeown asks the following questions:

• Have you ever found yourself stretched too thin at home, work (and church?)
• Do you feel overworked or underutilised?  
• Do you feel busy but not productive?  
• Do you ever feel constantly in motion but never getting anywhere?  

While you may have answered "yes" to some of these, I suspect our Proverbs 31 steward would not have

While we should indeed be exerting all our energy in the service of our master, we are not to do so indiscriminately.  While the steward described here "works with eager hands" (vs 13) she is very discerning in the tasks she sets out to do.  She "selects" wool and flax (vs 13), she carefully "considers a field" (vs 16) in which to invest her earnings for a fruitful return.  Once she has chosen her battles, she "sets about her work vigorously" (vs 17) safe in the knowledge that God alone - who has directed her to these specific undertakings - will fuel her efforts.

We too can live like this but we have to wait on God for clear guidance about where our energies are to best spent.  Once clear, we can joyfully exert all our energies without worrying we are misallocating them on the "wrong" types of projects.

Promoting the interests of Zion

Kazuo Ighiguro's classic novel "The Remains of the day" is the story of Stevens, the distinguished and long-standing butler (steward) of Oxfordshire's prestigious Darlington house.  As we get to know Stevens, we learn he is one of the finest butlers (stewards) of his generation.  We learn of his utmost dedication to his master Lord Darlington, a man who moves in circles of great political influence.  Though Stevens knows that many of his master's rarefied dealings are beyond his intellectual grasp, he will, so far as he is able, exert every possible energy in promoting the interests of Darlington and in maintaining the honour of the stately house.

This is the essence of what it means to be a steward.  To deploy one's every ounce of being to the upkeep of another's honour and reputation.

David understood this concept though he himself was a man of great influence and power.  In Psalm 122 he writes:  "For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your prosperity".  Commenting on this verse, Charles Spurgeon wrote:

“When David says ‘I will seek your prosperity’  - it is not a careless, loose seeking after it.  No…effort is implied.  I will throw my energies into it, my powers, my faculties, my property, my time, my influence, my connections, my family, my house, all that I have under my command shall, as far as I have the power to command, and as far as God gives me the ability to turn them to such a use, be employed to promote the interests of Zion”  - Treasury of David

The "Proverbs 31 woman" (who we've established is not so much a real woman but a picture of wisdom being acted out by any conscientious pilgrim - female or male) - seems to be possessed by a similar ambition.

We read that her husband has "full confidence in her", that he "lacks nothing of value" and that she "brings him good" all the days of her life.  We learn later in the passage that He is respected at the city gate where He sits in the company of the elders of the land.  Since the Bible likens the church to the bride of Christ, it follows that like this "wife of noble character", it is the responsibility of every Christian Steward to make it their surpassing priority the "honour" and "good name" of our bridegroom which is Jesus Christ

Indeed, we could do a lot worse than to use Proverbs 31: 10-31 as our playbook.

Wisdom is a woman

In Sunday's sermon on stewardship, I introduced the "Proverbs 31 woman" as the Bible's picture of the perfect steward.  I said that the passage of scripture is in fact "Gender agnostic" i.e. that while it looks as though the author is describing a real woman he is, in fact, describing what Kingdom Wisdom looks like in practice.  As such, the passage applies to us all.

Because this insight came relatively late in my preparation for Sunday, I thought I'd write a few blog posts to expand on the points I made during the sermon.  I'm very excited to do this because, the more I look at those 21 verses, the more the insights jump from the page in glorious technicolour.

Firstly, why do I feel that Proverbs 31 vs. 10 - 31 is about more than (if you'll excuse the term) - a housebound housewife?  Simply because of the way Wisdom is personified in the first 9 chapters of Proverbs.  Here are a few descriptions:

• Wisdom calls aloud in the street - SHE raises her voice in the public squares
• Blessed is the man who finds Wisdom - SHE is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold.  She is more precious than rubies (3:13)
• HER ways are pleasant and all HER paths are peace
• SHE is a tree of life
• Esteem HER and SHE will exalt you (4:7)
• And so on...

Interestingly, those same opening chapters contain warnings about a very different sort of "woman".  The adulteress

• HER house leads down to death, HER paths to the spirits of the dead.  None who go to HER return or attain the paths to life.  (2:18)
• My son, pay attention to wisdom...for the lips of an adulteress drip honey and HER speech is smoother than oil, but in the end, SHE is bitter as gall...(5:3)
• And so on

When I first read this, I felt it a bit unfair that the writer was only mentioning the seductress when, for an affair to happen, you need a male partner as well.  But this is another metaphor at work -  the author is setting up an adversary for wisdom - namely folly - and this is a "woman" who is treacherous to the core

It thus makes perfect sense as we move into the closing stages of Proverbs, that we return to the same metaphor that we saw in the first 9 chapters.  Only this time, the author is taking it a few steps further.  As we will see in the coming posts, these 21 verses show in great detail what the operation of wisdom should look like in a person's life - be they woman or man

Will you leave this mine unworked?

It was February 2017 and I was cooling off in a swimming pool in Port Shepstone when I heard my cell phone ping.  It was a whatsapp message from my partner with a link to a BBC newsflash explaining that an international venture capital company was making a hostile bid for my most important client[1].  “This won’t be good for business”, I said to no one in particular – before getting back into the pool.

It wasn’t.  In order to beat off the threat, the CEO had promised the shareholders drastic cuts in spending which, in turn, would dramatically impact the company’s use of external consultants and advisors.  In the blink of a whatsapp, at least 50% of my anticipated revenue for 2017 had vanished into the four winds.

What follows is an attempt to make sense of one of the scarier seasons[2] of my life.  It offers perspectives on how a Christian is to journey through doubt and uncertainty whilst listening to the voice of God and acting accordingly.  It explores the question of how to apply prophecy and words of knowledge to one’s circumstances.  It looks at the middle ground in which so many of us flounder: the place between waiting for God to act and acting ourselves.  Finally, it sheds light on the question of how we can live victoriously in Christ even when – by worldly standards, we are “failing”

*

I am a consultant specializing in the consumer marketing industry.  Between April 2009 and the infamous whatsapp message, my business had been growing in leaps and bounds – at least financially speaking.  Year in and year out – despite the occasional butterfly – I was reasonably assured of work from my “anchor client”.  I had other prospects of course but there never seemed to be the time to develop them properly and I was inclined to stick with the “safer” and more “dependable” work on offer.

As lucrative as this had been, I’d gradually grown weary of the work.  Its many rules and processes had choked out not only creativity but also alternative viewpoints such that I often came home feeling as if I’d failed.  But since it kept paying the bills I just put up with it.  In this corrosive “half-life” between financial success and lousy work, I was slowly losing my joy.  Worse still, this state was becoming my “new normal”.  But then the “Port Shepstone whatsapp” – in one sense an alarming news flash.  In another, as we shall see, a call to adventure.  Could God be trusted for more?  Could he be relied upon to lead me into a new realm of growth and opportunity?

Interestingly, though my first reaction was fear it was not a paralyzing fear.  I told myself that if God had seen to my every need for the last 8 years and caused my business to grow – fear was not a luxury I could afford.  Nor, it seemed, was I entitled to it.  As Bill Johnson once pointed out – “once you have experienced God’s provision in a particular area of your life, you forfeit the right to worry about that particular area ever again”.

The immediate challenge was figuring out what it all meant.  A few years ago, when my brother’s wife was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, he wrote:  “the hardest part of getting used to a new reality is trying to work out what the new reality really is!”   Fear or no fear I resolved to understand the brutal facts behind the sudden “severance”.  Was this to be a permanent thing?  Could I expect any work in 2017 from this client?  Understanding the brutal facts was a vital first step in my journey.  In times of uncertainty, one is tempted to live with one’s dreamy interpretation of reality rather than reality itself.  The news was not good – there was a certain “don’t call us we’ll call you” quality to the whole affair.  But my investigations proved adequate in securing a few nuggets of insight and ultimately, to know that things had changed – probably for good.

When the breakthrough came, it wasn’t financial; nor would my client change his mind.  In fact it’s hard to properly describe what happened outside of saying that something fresh began to invade my understanding.  Three landmark discoveries stand out

The first came through a total stranger – a visitor to our church who Lisa and I were hosting for the weekend.   On her final day with us, she cornered me in the kitchen saying she had something to tell me.  I noted she was carrying two decks of playing cards: one a conventional deck (i.e. with Kings, Queens, Jacks, Jokers etc)…the other, the colourful card game UNO which has a different set of rules entirely.  She held up the first pack:

“This deck is a picture of your work now”.  I took it from her, wondering where the unusual demonstration was going.  Holding out the second deck she said:

“And this is where you’re work is going - get ready for more color and fewer rules in the work you do.  There’s going to be more fun … it will be a whole new game”

I was intrigued. 

She continued:

“Have you heard the song ‘The Gambler’ by Kenny Rogers?”

“Sure”

“Okay, so you know the words?”

“I can Google them if I have to”

“Well I think the main chorus points to what your work is going to feel like.”  She handed me both decks telling me to keep them somewhere close at Hand[3]

Later I Googled the Lyrics to Kenny’s song

You got to know when to hold 'em,

Know when to fold 'em,

Know when to walk away,

And know when to run.

You never count your money

When you're sittin' at the table.

There'll be time enough for countin'

When the dealing's done.

Her words – unlike many prophecies I’ve received – instantly made sense.  My work, up until this most recent development, had become repetitive and formulaic.  There was too much process – too many rules.  It was also too predictable – the stakes weren’t high enough to bring the best out of me.  While it was producing income, it was wilting my spirit.  Yet now the clearest of signs that change was in the air.  But how would it play out?  And in which areas of my life?  And most importantly, how long would it take before the “fun” mentioned in the prophecy turned into “funds” in the bank account?  While there were no forthcoming answers to those questions, the words from the country song suggested that a greater need for shrewdness and intuition would be needed to identify and exploit the opportunities around me.  Also that some opportunities should be pursued regardless of whether it was immediately obvious how to monetize them.

The second discovery came as I was re-reading Stephen de Silva’s superb book on Biblical stewardship[4].  In the penultimate chapter he describes God’s goodness as a river that flows from the throne room of heaven.  There are times in life, writes Da Silva, “that I am facing downstream with the good things of God flowing away from me.  They are just beyond my reach, too hard to catch.  At this point, I ask God to turn me around so I can see his throne – see his provision.  It’s only then that I can see the Good things he is sending to me – more than I can contain.  There is abundance here for everyone”.  Da Silva explains that the more he became assured of God’s faithfulness and goodness, the more he was able to go beyond merely believing for good things.  His faith now grew to believing God for the BEST things namely, – “everything I needed and more to fulfill all he had put in my heart to do”.  But the key was positioning:

“I learned something else in the river, something I call positioning.  While we don’t need to run around the river grabbing for good things, we do often need to position ourselves in a certain way to receive what God is sending us”

I am a visual person so this analogy really spoke to me.  Faith is about expectation – I needed to re-orientate myself to see the beauty of the throne room and to anticipate the good that God was sending my way.  And by “good” I don’t just mean financial blessing – I mean opportunities – chances to live out the life He has put on my heart to live.  Chances to bless others.  Chances for adventure.  Chances to raise people up and to preach the Gospel. 

The third came one morning while I was reading Ecclesiastes 11

“Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.  He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.  In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good”

Combined with the playing card prophecy and Kenny’s lyrics, I sensed God was saying there had to be a “casting” of my bread, a sowing of my seed regardless of how gloomy or uncertain conditions might appear.  I didn’t have to know immediately what the outcome (or harvest) would be – I merely had to sow in faith.  I merely had to know that faith was the key to unlocking the “good” and the “best” that God had in store for me.

That day, I wrote a memo to myself in my Journal:

“Apply yourself with equal fervour to each opportunity I bring to light – sow your seed and cultivate every opportunity – do it with all your might.  BUT DO IT AS UNTO ME – AND IF YOU DO I WILL KEEP YOU OCCUPIED WITH GLADNESS OF HEART”

*

I’ve recently finished reading “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries.  In it, the author describes a startup as a “human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.”  This is a profound insight not just for the light it sheds on business but for the light it sheds on life itself.  After all, isn’t life itself a “human institution”?  Aren’t we humans required, in various ways, to make something of life be it in the form of jobs, service to family, country and humanity?  And just like a startup, doesn’t life take place under conditions of “extreme uncertainty”?  In fact, in almost every way, a human life is a lot like a startup!

As the safety net of my anchor client was pulled out from underneath me…as conditions of “reasonable certainty” gave way to conditions of “extreme uncertainty” – I suddenly saw my circumstances in the light of Ries’s now famous advice to entrepreneurs.  Put simply:  the only way for a startup to make progress is to design a lean prototype that can be tested and measured in the real world.   Once tested and measured, the entrepreneur must quickly reflect on what he has learnt from the feedback before either refining his product or completely reinventing it.  This is not just a question of “doing”, it is a question of  “learning” as well.  Learning by doing.  In fact, Ries goes so far as to say, “the only way for the startup to win is to learn faster than everyone else”.   

You may be thinking that all of this advice sounds a little too worldly for a Christian and, taken in isolation, you may be right.  But combining the intriguing details of my “playing card prophecy” as well as the conviction that God not only had “good” things in store for me but “better” things too - I sensed a clarion call to embark on a whole new way of pursuing and responding to God.  Could the key to an abundant life be a matter of playful experimentation with Spirit inspired ideas?  Perhaps a small but calculated “road-test” of faith, (even if the results suggested failure), could teach me more about where the Spirit was leading than if I simply sat there waiting for God to act.  Perhaps many such road tests would coalesce into a destination?  Sure, it would be a lot like going down the proverbial rabbit hole but at least it would go somewhere and I’d be forced to tune into God’s voice, not as a once off but as a permanent disposition.  In short, I’d be living!  C.S. Lewis put it thusly:

“To a man on a mountain road at night, a glimpse of the next 3 feet of road may matter more than a vision of the horizon”

*

The opportunity to apply this newly found wisdom came in March when Lisa walked into my office with an advertisement for an upcoming conference in Joburg.  The topic of this 2-day affair was an emerging strategic discipline that my partner and I had already introduced to a new but still small client.  Though the idea had taken root in the business, other distractions had hindered any real moves to expand its application.  The conference seemed to be coming at just the right time.  But there were costs involved – flights to Joburg, enrollment, and accommodation – none of which could easily be passed on to the client in question.  I also knew that in practice, many “summit conferences” fall shy of the lofty promises made in their PR materials and I was worried that the whole undertaking might be a waste of money. 

I brought the matter to God but my prayers were tepid and flavourless – what looked like faith was really just an excuse for staying put.   Then one day I found myself re-reading my journal. The “playing card prophecy”, the words to Kenny’s song and the river metaphor pointed to a very different sort of work life to the one I’d been living the past 8 years.  For years my work had been a case of colour by numbers that had hardly called for faith at all.  Suddenly God’s prompting was clear. “It’s not my decision to make – it’s yours.  Decide what you’re going to do and step into it.  But above all make your move and see what happens…” 

Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.  In the morning sow your seed, cultivate every opportunity – do it with all your might – but do it as unto the Lord.

In May we attended the conference.  And true to my cynical expectations, it didn’t live up to its PR.  In one particularly bad session I scribbled a note on a piece of paper and handed it to Alan who was sitting next to me:  “we were right all along!”   Had I come all this way to waste my money (really God’s money) and my time (really God’s time)?  There had to be more…but what?  “Your move God” I prayed defiantly, “let’s see what you can do with this”.  A few speakers later I was scribbling another huffy note to Alan. “Africa’s a pretty hopeless place to learn about this stuff!”  With that the scales fell from my eyes and the reason for our coming emerged with piercing clarity.  The whole disappointing experience was God’s way of showing us that true insights could only be found beyond the borders of our continent.  Our correspondence continued:

“We need to go to India – preferably get client to pay” – wrote Alan

I had been to India on business in 2016 had enjoyed the experience so much I vowed to return soon.  But could we persuade the client that it was such a good idea that he would foot the bill?  Then and there – on a piece of paper - we began to prepare our case.  A 3 city Trip.  Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore.  A list of 5 companies whose names we knew to be synonymous with this new line of strategy.   A rough calculation of costs and most importantly, the benefits our client could expect from the whole experience.  It was a terribly long shot but I suddenly felt a surge of exhilaration about work I hadn’t felt in years.  At last I was stepping out into the unknown.

Getting the client to agree proved to be a formality though it was one of the most nerve-wracking pitches I’d ever done.  It was only when we came to putting the itinerary together that my faith in the whole undertaking was sorely tested.  In total, it took nearly 4 months of e-mails, phone calls and cajoling to convince the Indian companies to host us.

The long-anticipated trip finally took place over 12 enthralling days in late September and it radically exceeded our expectations.  What made the trip so remarkable was not the lessons we anticipated but those that took us by surprise.  Put simply, our discoveries eclipsed not just our hopes but those of our client as well.  In addition, the insights gained translated into a battery of strategic recommendations and project ideas a few of which are, as I write, awaiting approval for implementation.  Even more amazing, Alan and I are in line to oversee them.

*

2017 was a weird year.  My business posted the lowest revenue in 8 years.  The opportunities I sensed God inviting me to pursue have yet to produce a meaningful payday.  Yet strangely, I emerge from 2017 feeling stronger, more motivated and infinitely more fulfilled than I’ve ever felt since starting my own business.  I have followed my instincts, made decisions, descended the “rabbit hole” without knowing where I would end up only to see God do amazing things on my behalf.  True to his promise, he has truly kept me “occupied with gladness of heart”.  He has sent, and is continuing to send, His best.

Have I succeeded?  Success seems a terribly inadequate word to describe the way I feel right now.  One thing I know is that I haven’t failed.

Jim Collins – one of the greatest business thinkers of the age and my most important work mentor – wrote a short book called “Hitting the Wall”.  It’s a business book inspired by a life-long love affair of climbing in The Rockies.  The most satisfying climbs says Collins, are “on sight” climbs – ascents that take place without any prior knowledge of the pitch.  Such knowledge can include guidance from veterans, study of maps, books or photos.  On an “on sight”, the climber must tackle the rock sight unseen; use his wits, figure it out as he goes along.  In chapter 2 of “Hitting the Wall”, the author writes about “how to succeed without reaching the top” – the key is in knowing the difference between “failure” and “fall-ure”

“The difference is subtle, but it is all the difference in the world. In fall-ure, you still fail to get up the route but you never let go. Going to fall-ure means a full one hundred percent commitment to go up, despite the odds against you. You'll only find your true limit when you go to fall-ure, not failure.”

Collins reflects on an on-sight climb he once attempted in Colorado over 40 years ago – a moment when, faced with the choice of reaching for a vital handhold called the “Crystal Ball” or giving up…he gave up. 

“Sure, I had less than a twenty percent chance of pulling through to the crystal ball, but because I let go, I'll never know for sure. Perhaps I would have had an extra reserve; perhaps I would have surprised myself and had an extra bit of power to hang on for one more move. Or perhaps—and this turned out to be true—the very next hold is better than it looks. And that's the rub. On the on-sight, you don't know what the next holds feel like. It's the ambiguity—about the holds, the moves, the ability to clip the rope—that makes 100 percent commitment on the on-sight so difficult and yet so exciting”

Collins returned to the same climb several times over the next three years.  On each attempt when things got tough, he chose fall-ure over failure and each time, despite not getting to the top – he discovered something new about the rock and about himself.  “I felt stronger and more satisfied after each attempt that ended in Fall-ure even though I never topped out,” he wrote.   This perseverant spirit would eventually take him to the summit, much to the amazement of more expert climbers who had consistently failed on the same pitch.

The events of 2017 have convinced me that journeying with God is like an on-sight climb.  And when we choose Fall-ure over failure, we cannot lose.  As someone once said:

“The Christian walk is like two parallel railroad tracks – one called “Victory” the other called ‘breakthrough’”

A final illustration before I close[5].  Once a King called Jehoash of Samaria (the northern Kingdom of Israel) approached the great prophet Elisha – now on his deathbed.  “My Father, my Father” he cried – “war is upon us!” 

“Go and get a bow and some arrows” – said Elisha, “and when you are ready, open the East window and fire your arrows”.  With each volley, Elisha proclaimed:  “The arrow of God’s salvation – the arrow that will deliver you from your enemy” 

“Now take your arrows and strike the ground” – said the prophet.

It probably sounded like a weird instruction – it still does today.  But it came from the man of God so obedience was essential.  Jehoash obeyed – but only half-heartedly.  Self consciously no doubt, he struck the ground three times before quitting.

“Why didn’t you hit the ground five or six times?”, said Elisha, “then you would beat your enemy until he was finished. As it is, you’ll defeat him three times only.”

Jehoash DID defeat his enemy three more times but as victories go they were inconclusive and his foe remained a thorn in his side – and the side of his successors - for many years.  Charles Spurgeon later preached a gem of a sermon[6] on this very topic.  In his closing remarks he asks a question we would all do well to consider:

“Behold, the blessed promises of God are before you!  You children of God may be rich, and blessed, and happy; will you leave His mine unworked?”

---

[1] Hereafter referred to as my anchor client

[2] And which in some ways, is still a scary season! 

[3] I did, they sit right next to my mouse and one has been inserted into the luggage tag on the side of my laptop bag

[4] Money and the Prosperous Soul

[5] 2 Kings 13: 18,19

[6] https://www.spurgeongems.org/vols37-39/chs2303.pdf

Go easy on the Springboks

It seems a lifetime since Brand SA brought us its stirring “Alive with Possibility” PSA.  The ad built a reasonably convincing and emotive case for why South Africans should believe in the future.   And even though one prominent economist told me at the time that he was only “cautiously optimistic” about our chances  – the ad persuaded me.

Fast forward to September 2016.  South Africa had just lost to Australia in a terrible display of rugby in Brisbane and there was much gnashing of teeth.  In particular, Twitter seethed with vitriol.  “What's the big deal?” an American friend said to me with a shrug, “where I come from it’s rare to see your team win as often as people expect the Springboks to win”.  I could have slapped him but thought better of it – we were, after all, preparing to go into a meeting.  Perhaps another day.

But that’s just the point.  The Springboks ARE expected to win every game even though the stats suggest that despite two World Cups and a sprinkling of Tri Nations titles, they are likely to win less than 7 games out of 10 – a lot less in fact.  There's no logic to it.

It’s a bizarre fixation when you consider that while our great rugby crisis is unfolding, our universities are burning (and may never recover) and that as many as 5 million children will go to bed hungry tonight – many within a 10km radius of where you live.  To say nothing of Nkandla, the EFF and the NPA.  We are becoming, it would seem, the land of impossibility yet the state of a national sports team ranks right up there with other national emergencies.

 4 Weeks ago, I set out to investigate why.  Over 20 focus groups in 5 major cities and 15 interviews with prominent rugby personalities took me down the rabbit hole that is rugby in South Africa

 At first there were no surprises.  Rugby is a type of social currency.  Even 50 000 fans at Kings Park could not be deterred from having a good afternoon last Saturday despite one of the most humiliating losses in Springbok history.  Rugby is beer, braai and boerewors.  Rugby is a story to tell and a tale to share.  Rugby is our big day out and an excuse to wear an ill-fitting green jersey.  “It is a pretext to stay in touch with one another” – said a young white man from Randburg.  “Win or lose we come together”.  When we invite a foreign friend to our local Currie Cup fixture what we are really doing is giving them a window on our world.

 Then things got a little deeper.  I found that Rugby puts us on the map, provides the perfect canvas to show the world what we’re made of.  And I don’t mean hard tackles and the odd bout of fisticuffs.  Those much-televised Mandela/Pienaar moments were so special because there was the perfect distillation of our national soul – muddied though it may be by recent events.  (By the way, if you were wondering what Mandela said to Rugby’s bad boy James Small moments before the kick-off the answer lies in a book by Dan Retief called “The Springboks and the Holy Grail”.  He said: “my son has a picture of you on his wall James.  He tells me you have a tough fight today against Lomu – he said that if anyone can stop him it’s you”.  I mean – how could we NOT have won?)

 And then things got dark.

 We are a frightened people.  I knew it before setting out but I had no real grasp of the scale of it.  We fear Jacob Zuma, Julius Malema, the #feesmustfall movement, the falling Rand…we fear what may happen to Pravin Gordhan and much more besides.  But these pale into insignificance next to our greatest fear – that we might one day become a nation of nobodies - a junk bond nation.  Comic relief for our friends who have emigrated.  It’s a deeply existential problem actually.  As one depressed fiftysomething resident of Fish Hoek put it, “I’m at the bottom of the food chain and there’s no way out”. 

This is not uncharted territory for us.  In the grim twilight of apartheid, we were literally an obscure nation – known only for the wrong things.  But no matter.   We had a legendary rugby team and test matches were our middle finger to the world.  “Slap all the sanctions you want on us but we will prevail – and should you be so unfortunate as to meet us on the Rugby field we will crush you”.  In this sense, rugby (more precisely winning test rugby) was, in the words of Von Clausewitz, a continuation of politics by other means.

But that was then – what about now?  We are no longer the pariah state we once were.  There’s been a reasonably satisfying flow of success on the rugby field since readmission.  So why do we spend sleepless nights excruciating about the recent developments in rugby?  “It’s like they’ve taken something away from us,” lamented one fan at my local country club after the Wallabies won in Brisbane.  Who he meant by “they” I can only guess but he resembled someone who had just lost something of great importance. 

 It’s simple really.   We behave, for the most part, like a helpless people.  The forces that threaten to tear our nation apart represent too big a fight for Joe Public.   At best we resort to slacktivism on Facebook or spoil a vote or two in the local elections. Those macro forces from which we cower are alive and well in our beloved pastime too:  mismanagement, high-level race politics and a maze of other leadership issues. 

Enter the Springboks.

A test win – no matter how ground out – is the middle finger to “them” – who are doing all “they” can to blot out the future – to hijack our way of life.  For many whites the Springboks are, quite literally, the “Thin Green Line” that patrols and defends the meniscus of hope that remains in our land.  About the only force that comes closer to defending the pride and hope of a nation would be the Marines or the Navy Seals.

In Greek mythology there is a tale of one Sisyphus who, punished by the Gods for his self aggrandisement and deceitfulness was forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it come back and hit him, repeating this action for eternity.  Nothing describes the burden our national team better.  

There’s a picture I really enjoy, taken moments after Japan beat South Africa in the 2015 World Cup opening rounds.  It presents a very different supporters mindset.  One that is as secure in the destiny of his country as he is in the destiny of his team - though he loves rugby, he seems to see the bigger picture.  That guy really has it.   If only I could be like that guy.