This Too Shall Pass

 This was a favorite saying of my dad's. He told me it was from the Bible, but it wasn't. Its origin has been traced to the works of Persian poets. My father was a child of the "great depression", a member of the hoards of people migrating from the South to the West Coast as in the "grapes of wrath", a POW in Germany during WWII and he raised a family with meager existence on a small poor man's  farm in Arkansas. He saw the best of times and certainly the worst of times. When he had reached the end of his life at 91, he had a confident assurance that whether he was in the midst of troubling circumstances or living large "this too shall pass". 

The world is presently in the throes of a pandemic that we've never experienced before. Our lives have been altered dramatically with shutdowns and now we are shut-ins. It's a prison sentence for a while, but my father would tell you "this too shall pass". A contributing factor to the anguish of this event is the non-stop, 24-hour discussion about the same subject on social media and cable TV. My brother shared a website where you can get real-time incident numbers and body counts graphically displayed for every State in the U.S. or country in the world. It's kinda like the debt clock. 

Like the rest of you, I'm sequestered in my home doing the best I can to stay occupied. I am blessed to live on 5 acres on top of a mountain in the Ozarks. There aren't many humans up here, but lots of wildlife. I exercise in my little home gym, hike in the forest and do my daily chores. I also do plenty to keep my mind occupied with meaningful information. Information to enhance my knowledge and feed my soul. I'm often up before 4 am and it has become the best hours of my day.

Recently I've been doing a study following the work of Dr. Tim Keller. This recent study has taken me to a favorite leadership/personal mantra of mine i.e. "knowing my purpose".

As you may recall from my discussions during lectures or in my writings, that many years ago I penned a purpose statement for my marriage, my business, and my life. At the core of each discipline is the desire to honor God in everything I do. The apostle Paul said: "I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now, as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death". Phillippians1:20 NIV. This focused determination has sustained me through the past  8 months which have the been the toughest I ever thought I would experience in this thing called "life".

Celebrated Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl is best-known for his 1946 psychological memoir Man's Search for Meaning a meditation on what the gruesome experience of Auschwitz taught him about the primary purpose of life: the quest for meaning, which sustained those who survived. He talks about the observation of prisoners in the same circumstance and their reaction. They fell into basically three categories....

 1) those who became bitter which lead some to evil

 2) those who just gave up and died in despair 

 3)  those who became brave, helpful and seemed to flourish amid harsh circumstances. 

The key for those in the third category was that they had a sense of "meaning" or "purpose" in their lives. Knowing your purpose can guide your attitude. During our Leadership Conferences, we often discuss the attitude we will embrace every day.

Frankl said, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Again I quote Paul who said, " I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or want".

With this in mind, for me, here are the things I choose for the coming days (maybe weeks) during this pandemic.

1. To be thankful each day for what I do have. Good health, family and friends, a roof over my head, food in the pantry. (and for some of you, LOTS of toilet paper)

2. Attention to the growth of my personal development: Mental, Physical and Spiritual

3. Turning off the TV

4. Staying in touch with family and friends for companionship and encouragement.

5. Revisit my "purpose" for when we come out on the other side of this world event. What do I want to be...to.my family, my community, my profession and to my God the giver of life it's self?

These are amazing times, but this too shall pass and as Frankl observed

"Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate."

Be blessed, be encouraged ----- Finish Well