There are surprising advantages to growing older; each year is a slightly higher platform for viewing the past. And so, just last week, from my current vantage point on the threshold of turning 59, I captured a new picture of life.

While listening to a Mosaic Podcast in which Hank Fortner spoke about faith and wisdom, I pondered a question he asked, one often used by motivational speakers and goal-setters: What would you attempt if you knew you couldn’t fail?

I thought about how personal failure has changed me and shaped our family’s life. I started making a list of what would have been different if I’d gone through life never failing.

Who would I be if I never failed? I …

…would be braver, knowing I couldn’t fail, but without the risk of failure what is the meaning of courage?

…would’ve never learned humility from having to start over being laid off so many times

…would believe our family destiny, safety, and success, depended solely on my economic decisions

…would’ve never experienced the restless heart that’s pulled me toward God

…wouldn’t have needed all those time-consuming and often painful training runs before each marathon

…would’ve succeeded in my first attempt at the Golden Yucca Marathon, never fully appreciating how difficult it was

…would’ve missed the deep spiritual meditations that came from those long training runs

…would have the same self-sufficiency I had when I was 20

…would’ve never experienced the strengthening, maturing, and seasoning, that comes from a failure-laden journey

…wouldn’t have sought out sages for wisdom and advice

…would still think success was all about me

…would have no patience with those who are suffering, for those who fail

…would have leaped up the corporate ladder moving to California, missing so many ministries and relationships in Midland

…wouldn’t know what it means to prepare

…would’ve jumped into teaching opportunities way too soon

…would’ve never needed, understood, or experienced forgiveness

…wouldn’t have learned to listen to advice

…would be worthless to anyone asking my advice

…would’ve never learned to give credit to others

…would’ve never learned to recognize bad advice

…would’ve never learned the details of why success happens

…would not understand or know risk; without risk there is no room for love, only conquest

…would’ve never learned that contingency plans are often better than original plans

…would’ve never learned how to learn

…would’ve never known anyone smarter than me

…would’ve never learned the joy of spontaneous improvisation in sticky situations

…would’ve never known how much I needed grace; never learned how to give grace away

We love to quote the movie, Apollo 13, “Failure is not an option,” but it’s wrong. Failure is not only a live option, it is a certainty. And if the oxygen tank in the Apollo 13 Service Module hadn’t failed, turning a moon landing into a rescue mission, NASA would never have had their “finest moment.”

But embracing the value of failure isn’t enough. Hank Fortner followed up his original question with this idea – that as Christ Followers safe in God’s embrace, failure shouldn’t scare us. A better question to ask ourselves would be: What would you do if you knew failure didn’t matter?

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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I wasn’t sold on skiing again; not even sure I wanted to try; afraid my arthritic knees would give out. And besides, our last ski trip was 15 years ago. I’d assumed skiing was behind me, something I used to do. But I couldn’t let the rest of my family go to Santa Fe without me, and our five-year-old granddaughter, Madden, was joining us for her first ski trip. How could I not be part of that?

Everyone else including Madden skied three days, but I skied only the first day. I knew at the end of Saturday I was finished, and any further attempts would likely end in serious injury.

But what happened to Cyndi and me was surprising: this trip reawakened our love for skiing, and as we rode the lift together we started planning more family trips.

The reason for the surprise, at least for me, was how soon this reawakening followed a recent and pivotal conversation we had one noon at Rosa’s. The observation and question I usually hear is, “Why are you limping?” However, this time Cyndi’s sister, Tanya, asked, “Are you a candidate for knee replacement?”

“Yes.”

“When are you going to get it done? Why are you waiting?”

“I don’t know. I’m not ready to give up running, yet.” What I didn’t say, but knew, was that I’d only run six times since Thanksgiving, and none of those were pleasant. In truth, I’d given up running already.

Minimizing knee pain has informed almost every decision I’ve made in the past ten years. It’s kept me from doing fun things with Cyndi, like hiking in Verana or the Kalalau Trail. It’s pushed back too many of the dreams that once energized my life, and I want those dreams back.

I want to dream again of long dirt trails, of backpacking the Appalachian Trail or Continental Divide Trail, and as of this weekend, of family ski trips.

I’m fully aware that I may never run again after knee replacement, but I’m not completely convinced of that. We’ll see what happens. As Cyndi has noted, what I currently call running is “hardly running at all,” more like power walking, and surely I could keep doing that. My consistent prayer has been to ask God to remove the love of running from my heart whenever He thinks it is time. He hasn’t done that yet.

Thinking about knees and dreams has reminded me how important cycling has become. Not just as a form of vigorous exercise, which I love, but also as a vehicle for ambition and creativity. I need something in my life that pushes my own expectations. Carroll and Mark did me a big favor when they talked me into cycling, long before it was all I could do.

During one of my Santa Fe non-skiing days I was flipping through Penelope Lively’s excellent memoir, Dancing Fish and Ammonites, when I saw this comment about gardening: “The miraculous power of gardening: it evokes tomorrow, it is eternally forward-looking, it invites plans and ambitions, creativity, expectation.”

Her description of gardening is exactly how I want to live my life: forward-looking adventures, ambitions, creativity, and expectations. I want the important things in my life – work, sports, hobbies, ministries, and writing – to be forward-looking. I want to be engaged in things that make the future bigger, brighter, bolder, and smarter.

I want a life that spills over onto people and pushes them deeper into life. I know such a life can exist even with bad cranky knees, but thinking about new knees has reawakened me. It has leaned me forward. I can once again see on my horizon epic dreams of long distances and endurance adventures and moving on dirt with my guys.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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Let’s just say that being a grandparent and being a grownup do not always have the same goals.

Our plan for last Friday was to drive to Dallas, to DFW Airport, for an interview with Homeland Security for Trusted Traveler Program approval, and then on to Mansfield for the weekend to be part of our granddaughter Madden’s 5^th birthday party.

We left Midland at 6:30 AM, driving on slightly slick snowy roads, and made it around Loop 250 to I-20 feeling bold and confident. The road conditions were not excellent, but they were passable, and I drove 40 mph hoping for clear traveling ahead. Maybe we would catch up to the edge of this slow-moving storm which hadn’t yet reached Dallas or Ft. Worth.

Traffic was very light, and the right hand lane of I-20 was mostly clear. However, the wipers and defrosters wouldn’t keep up with ice on the windshield and we had to stop a couple of times to scrape if off. Luckily we had two ice scrapers, so Cyndi and I would jump out and scrape each sides of the windshield and then jump back in, like a NASCAR pit crew.

After we left Big Spring the road conditions quickly deteriorated. Apparently the snow plow driver that had cleared the lane from Midland stopped in Big Spring for breakfast. Even worse, the traffic volume doubled, mostly big trucks driving entirely too fast since they didn’t have their family on board and thought they were invulnerable.

Our son Byron texted that snow had started to fall in north Dallas, so our hopes of clear driving were over. We phoned daughter Katie who had driven to work on clear roads but was now watching it snow outside her office window.

At Coahoma we decided the appropriate grownup decision was to turn around and go back home. It had taken us 1-1/2 hours to drive 50 miles, and traffic was slowing down even more. We’d have to tell our little girl happy birthday on FaceTime.

The drive home gave me plenty of time to think about our decision to turn around and how it mirrored so many other decisions we make in life.

How do we know when to turn back or when to move forward in faith in spite of the circumstances? How do we know how far to push into adversity and keep going, or when the grownup decision is to cut our losses, minimize future risk, turn back and go home? Do we keep moving in the same direction until receiving a specific word, or sign, from God? What is the difference between acting in faith and simply being stubborn? Or stupid?

The movie Searching for Bobby Fischer has a famous line about winning at chess, “Don’t move until you see it.” That theory of decision making works well with my engineer mind, which never wants to start a project until I can see the entire path.

But my friend Gene Abel once called me out on that when I hesitated to take a teaching opportunity at Midland College. He said, “Berry you always want to be certain of the whole path before you take your first step. Sometimes you have to start moving in faith and see what happens.”

Knowing when to go and when to stay is never easy and never clear.

Cyndi and I made the correct decision to turn around and drive back home last Friday. We’ll have plenty of opportunities to make that trip when the weather gets better. However, most of life’s decisions are not so obvious.

I believe the more we know and understand God the clearer the answer will be, but I also suspect we’ll have to step out on many plans and issues before seeing the path. The good news is, God doesn’t leave us alone to decide. If we’re seeking His will and pursuing our relationship with Him daily, then I think our default reaction to a tough decision is to trust our own hearts, where God dwells and where He most often speaks.

When a straight path appears ahead of us, we should take it. Make the move. But be prepared to stop and turn around if necessary. It may be that little out-and-back jaunt was what God wanted from us all along.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.