The Sneak

Have you ever had someone sneak up behind you and scare the living daylights out of you? One of the worst startles for me was one day when I was blading my driveway with my old John Deere crawler. A couple of hours of the monotonous drone of the tractor's engine combined with my preoccupation with the grading caused me to forget about what could be going on behind me. (If you've ever seen one of these old relics, you'll remember the seat hangs out over the back of the tractor. Whatever is behind the tractor gets to the operator before it gets to the tractor.) Suddenly and without any warning, there was the incredibly loud blast of a pickup truck horn inches behind my head. After the split second it took to for me to realize the scare had not caused me to have a fatal heart attack, I turned around to look eye-to-headlight into my friend's pickup truck. Before I could say or do anything, I looked at his face-he was cracking up with laughter! I remember thinking, "I'm glad you think it's so _____ funny!" Then, it hit me that, as a machine operator, my friend had probably had someone do the exact same thing to him before. (It now occurs to me that this was one installment of the payback for all the times I sneaked up behind my wife while she was vacuuming and scared the hooey out of her.)

Sometimes things sneak up on us other than friends, husbands and wives. Like a 50th birthday. The crazy thing is that I have known for quite some time it has been sneaking up on me. My wife asked me the other day, "So, what does turning 50 mean to you?"

Even though being 50 has taken me a bit by surprise, Vicky's question did not; I have asked myself the same question several times in recent days. What I've decided is that there is no magic in the number itself; the ages 20, 50 or 80 don't say anything qualitatively about us as a person. All they do is record elapsed time. The real measure of life's journey is not how long we've been on it, but where we are in light of where we came from, what life is like where we are, and where we will end up one day. Being too concerned about the number of years can spoil the beauty of the trip itself.

Psalm 90 is known as the 'prayer of Moses, the man of God'. Like most of us, Moses also contemplated the relative brevity of life. In verse 10 of the psalm, Moses said, "The length of our days is seventy years-or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away." Because Moses was well aware of how quickly life passes, he continued in verse 12: "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." As I consider 50 years having passed and not knowing how many I have left, I can relate to Moses asking God for wisdom to know the things he needed to do most in the rest of his years. Although I did not formally ask as Moses did, I was recently reminded of something I need to be increasingly attentive to in the rest of my journey.

For my birthday, some friends collaborated with Vicky to give me two back-to-back fishing trips to Canada and have my two sons join us on the second trip. John Mark could not go because of pilot training in the Air Force, but David was able to work out his schedule to join us on the second trip. As expected, the fishing was great, but an even greater enjoyment was in store for me. I slowly began to realize how many other fathers and sons (and in one case, father and daughter) besides David and me had taken the time, effort and expense to get away together. As the days passed, I thoroughly enjoyed "drinking in the moment" of being with my son and watching friends also enjoying the fishing, food and camaraderie with their fathers and/or sons.

As I think back now to the eleven of us bowing our heads before the meals to thank God for the food and the time together, two of the verses my Mother requested at her funeral come to mind: Since my youth, O God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds. Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come. (Psalms 71:17-18 NIV) There was more being passed on from one generation to the next than just food, fishing and camaraderie.

Surprised at being 50? Perhaps. Sad? Absolutely not!