I was having coffee with a good friend and fellow quarterback, Anthony Dilweg, who was the 1989 ACC player of the year as a QB at Duke University. After he finished his NFL career with the Green Bay Packers, he joined our commercial real estate firm in RTP, North Carolina. After a few years with us, he spun off on his own and now The Dilweg Company is a tremendously successful real estate investment firm owning and operating office buildings in several markets on the East Coast. Anthony was discussing his strategy to try and find "the other side of complexity" with regard to his real estate decision making. His firm is known for doing extraordinary due diligence and gathering tremendous amounts of data for their decision making, but he explained that at the end of the day, he wanted to break through the complexity to where it would all become simple.
I was intrigued by that perspective and so I carried it with me for the next few weeks. And as usual, it began to apply in many areas of my life. In yoga a few days later, the instructor offered a quote saying that "peace was on the other side of silence" and she encouraged us to find that in our class with her over the next 75 minutes. I did and it was wonderful.
So, I began to try to see what is on the other side the things that we face, and to seek to break through there. Coach Steve Wilson, of THE QB MENTOR, is always pushing his quarterbacks in class to learn the information he is teaching so well that they can use that knowledge on demand. I raised the question, what is on the other side of knowledge?
In talks with my son Shawn on his journey through knee surgery and hoping to play quarterback at Vanderbilt this season, I keep pushing him to prepare for his opportunity and to make sure he is ready when it comes. I then asked myself, what is on the other side of opportunity?
Recently, I was invited to see a private pre-screening of the new movie WOODLAWN, about Tony Nathan, a star football player in Alabama in the 1970’s whose school almost exploded from racial tension. It was powerful and inspirational to watch the spiritual awakening that happened in Birmingham during those times, and I asked myself. what is on the other side of racism?
I didn’t have the answers to these questions I was innocently collecting so I began to pray about them and ask for wisdom and insight. They seemed important enough that I should formulate answers. And over the course of the last few weeks, the Lord has whispered answers to me so gently.
The easier answers came first and I heard that intuition is on the other side of knowledge. And then that destiny is on the other side of opportunity. What about the ugliness of racism? He whispered, fellowship is on the other side of racism. I scribbled these thoughts down as they came to me during the day or night.
After dinner a few weeks ago, the kids were playing and someone knocked my computer off the table and it broke. I was hot, and raised my voice, mainly because I had already warned them to be careful around my work desk. I was angry, but I was able to bite my tongue and the question came to me, what is on the other side of this anger? That was a tough one, because I couldn’t see through it in the moment.
I went to bed still miffed and with no answer. But before I dosed off I asked the ultimate question for me, given this fatigue from leukemia I have been battling, and that was what is on the other side of this cancer?
That night, the Lord whispered in my heart again, so gently, like only HE can.
I heard, on the other side of anger, is love. I can still feel myself smiling, and then it became clear to me the answer to my last question.
On the other side of cancer, is not death, although that may happen, but then again, it happens to all of us eventually. On the other side of life, is ETERNAL LIFE...WITH ME I heard the Lord say in my spirit.
I woke up in tears.
I woke up in joy. And I wanted to share this with you. Thanks for reading.
I hope you can look at your circumstances in life, both the everyday and some of the more philosophical situations that you face, and ask yourself, "what is on the other side of this?"
And I pray that the answers are whispered to your heart by the Lord like they have been for me.
Amen and AMEN