January 6, 2003
ANOTHER VIEW:
Enjoy a 'smoove' year in '03;
learn to live with 'gumption'
___By Johnnie C. Godwin
___The other day at breakfast, wife Phyllis commented, "Where did 2002 go?" I told her I would get my diary and tell her. Perhaps the common sense of gumption
___caused me to realize at age 16 that it was important both to plan each year and to be able to tell where the year had gone when it ended. Anyway, at 16 I started keeping a daily diary and still fill up a page a day at age 65.
___At each year's end, I measure how well or how poorly I did on my goals and summarize highlights and lowlights of the year. This practice causes me to see what I've exchanged each day and year of my life for. It causes me to see to what degree I've seized the year and answered my calling (Ephesians 4:1). Of course, not all failures are equal.
___A couple of years after I started the diary habit, I met and married Phyllis; and we produced sons Mark, Larry and Steve. In that process, I also learned more about "gumption." In 1960, I came home from a long, hard day of work and graduate school and told Phyllis I was exhausted. Instead of the sympathy I expected, she said, "You mean you don't have any gumption."
___I was shocked. Despite any problems we had ever had in our relatively young marriage, we had never called each other names or attacked personhood. So I repeated that I was exhausted, not that I didn't have any gumption. To which she replied, "That's what 'gumption' means: You don't have any energy or get-up-and-go." Our mismatched meanings for "gumption" messed up our communication.
___I realized my West Texas vocabulary and understanding were at odds with what Phyllis had learned growing up in Oklahoma. Though I could hardly claim to be a wordsmith, I was confident I knew what "gumption" meant. So, I said: "No, that's not what 'gumption' means. It means common sense. Let's look it up in the dictionary." And we did.
___Surprise! When we studied "gumption" in the dictionary, we found we were both right. "Gumption" meant common sense, horse sense or good judgment when it came into English in 1719. But since at least 1812, it has also meant energy, vigor, spirit, backbone, initiative or get-up-and-go. The context of usage makes the difference.
___Nevertheless, I naively gloated that my meaning for "gumption" was listed first in the dictionary. I was naive first in not yet having learned that husbands and wives don't win arguments with each other: It's a lose-lose deal.
___Second, I was naive in thinking that Merriam-Webster's first listed meaning was more correct than a second or later meaning. Not true. Phyllis was just as right as I was. In fact, in the 21st century, the newer meaning she understood seemingly has the edge over the older meaning in popular usage.
___ That experience of clearing up word meanings led us to start a lifetime habit of looking up words to communicate better and to grow in understanding of words. As our sons got old enough to read, they also followed our pattern of looking up words.
___During one Texas mosquito season, youngest son Steve went unbitten while the rest of us itched and scratched. Steve was old enough to argue but not old enough to read. He told older brothers Mark and Larry mosquitoes didn't bite him because his skin was "smoove." They told him there wasn't any such word. Steve appealed to me to agree with him since I was supposedly the family authority on words. I told the boys to look up "smoove" in the dictionary. They did. And after Mark and Larry thought they had proved their point to Steve, he replied, "Well, just a guy said that." Steve had gumption.
___What I've just told you illustrates some principles I've learned:
___Words usually have more than one meaning.
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___Back to the matter of gumption and beginning a new year. I've just inked what I hope are worthy goals for 2003. The goals focus on most areas of life--heart, soul, mind, spirit, health, family, maintenance, work, play and other goals that seem worthy of a year's stewardship of life. When 2003 is over, I don't want to ask myself where the year has gone and not be able to answer that question. So I have a new diary too.
___In planning for a new year, I'm always conscious that the foundation for planning needs to begin with God. That's why I put "Deo Volente" (God willing) at the beginning and the end of my goals. Some people are fond of saying what they will do if the Lord is willing and the creek doesn't rise. It's my conviction that it doesn't matter whether the creek rises or not if God is willing, because he enables what he wills.
___Friend Andy Anderson died last year, but something he used to say still plays in my mind each new year. Andy used to say, "Most people adopt goals they could reach if God weren't alive." He believed goals ought to be such a stretch that a person couldn't reach them without God's help. I agree with Andy and try to set goals with gumption that call for faith and action based on God's will and his strength (Philippians 3:12-14; 4:13).
___Further, planning a new year by looking to God matches the counsel of the Bible. James 4:13-15 says: "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. ... Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'"
___Elsewhere, a man who didn't consider God in his grand financial and retirement plans was called a fool and told he would die that very night (Luke 12:16-23). These truths do not make me despondent; rather, they fill me with energy and a sense of stewardship that challenges me not to bury my talent.
___I've watched highly motivated professional football players run free toward the goal and spike the ball at about the five-yard line without scoring. They had the driving gumption of initiative and energy, but they lacked the gumption of common sense to be sure they crossed the goal and scored before quitting.
___With the beginning of 2003, I'm well aware of how long a year is and how important it is to live all of it with both energetic and common sense gumption. It's critical not to quit before you reach the goal.
___In 2003, may you live with gumption and have a "smoove" year.
___Copyright 2003 by Johnnie C. Godwin, a native of Midland and former Texas pastor and current international publishing consultant, who retired after a 22-year career with LifeWay Christian Resources
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