Listen to the commentary

Dear Marketplace Friend,

Allow me to grab your attention for a five minute read – or, listen – as I pull you away from war news in Israel and Ukraine and political battles in the Beltway. I promise: it’s worth your time. Staying up-to-date with international intrigue and tragic trauma puts us in a swirling dark hole of despair. How in Heaven’s name can we keep the candle of hope lit in a storm of calamity?

God made an astute observation in the midst of his creative outpouring on Day Six of history’s calendar: “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Hundreds of generations later, it’s still true: solo living is not a viable strategy for ultimate success.

I know that I’m treading on 21^st Century thin ice. In the last 30 years, the uncoupled adult population in America has gone from 29% to 38%. Single-person households now number 38 million. Loneliness – according to a study by Harvard University – is a global pandemic without a shot-in-the-arm antidote. Current Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy calls it “the underappreciated public health crisis that has harmed individual and societal health.” 

The problem did not emanate from a lab in Wuhan during the last administration; in fact, its origins were already obvious in a garden in Eden. Adam had optimum health, a great job with no office politics, no dysfunctional family-of-origin and his choice of pets toward whom he could pour attention. Despite all of those Instagram-worthy accoutrements of the good life, loneliness was already emerging as an acute condition requiring divine intervention. 

The ultimate resolution was proffered before skeptics and deceivers became widespread: Heaven established marriage-for-life – between a man and a woman – as the basis by which loneliness would be neutralized for all who would come to life as progeny of the Couple from Eden.

It comes as no surprise that the long-game that endorses the sophistication of society and the dismissal of the divine would take exception to the biblical ideal. Today, the Elite propose that individual freedom to live unencumbered by historic constraints cannot embrace the God-sourced and timeless model of covenant marriage and nuclear family. 

For the last few weeks, we’ve been suggesting that the Urgent has usurped the Important in the intense clamor for attention that is so unrelenting that the Breaking News loads onto your smart screen while you sleep, waiting for you to wake-up and power-up to the accumulated backlog of horror that continued while you tried to achieve enough REM sleep to get you through the next day’s demands.

Between now and your personal End of Days moment, there are three imperatives that will never be upstaged by any epic externals in which you are – at most – a digital bystander. Your priorities are the universal top tier issues: ¹ Find your God; ² Find your Mate; and, ³ Find your Calling.

Each of those discoveries require serious guided assistance. The order is not random; the drama builds as each introduction and validation opens the door to a life-long learning process in which the particulars emerge and the proactive engagement commences. All three assume a lifelong bond: rather than the short-lived flirtation with inadequate alternatives that has become de rigueur among modern celebrity influencers, these foundational elements of identity will weave together to form the life that extends into the Eternity that has no terminus on the horizon.

In this Q4/2023 exercise, we’re asking: what steps do we take in the waning weeks of this year that will set in motion advancements in life’s critical dimensions as we turn the corner into 2024? To that end – and regarding that priority issue of your Partner for Life – how can we begin with our current status and reach for exponential improvement in the near-term future?

With that shared objective in mind, we’ll get into some meaningful challenge next week. As Cheri and I experience our 53^rd year of marriage together, my counsel is founded in reality. 

Are you open to that input? Stay tuned…

Bob Shank