Word of Wisdom: Pace

“Leave this hurry and adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

A few years ago, I ran my first (and last) marathon. It was a new experience for me, having never previously been inclined toward any form of running not involving a ball. Nevertheless, it seemed a good exercise heading into my forties, and it was indeed transformative physically, mentally, and spiritually—though it was far more a painful purgatory than a heavenly endorphin high.

But if I had to name one main takeaway from the experience, it’s this: pace is paramount.

Whether it was my discovery of the importance of pace on my training runs or my rather abysmal performance on that front during race day, I couldn’t escape the truth that learning to pace yourself is one of the most critical skills a runner can develop. Pace ultimately determines your performance in distance runs.

And so it does, too, in life.

Assessing our pace, setting our pace, and keeping our pace might be where most of our energy should be directed. Why? Because once purpose is in place, vision established, and the “team” assembled, protecting pace is the primary function of leadership in any unit, be it a family or corporation. And it needs to be protected every step, every stage, as the environment around us is laden with things seemingly designed to disrupt our pace.

This became clear to me on training runs, where every breeze, every slight incline or decline, every traffic intersection represented an environmental factor pressing on me to slow down or tempting me to speed up. I got better, eventually, at continually moderating my pace by pushing a bit harder into headwinds and not taking the bait to do my best Usain Bolt impression at the start of runs or down a hill…or to impress an audience along the route.

In the same way, our every day is filled with factors banging on our pace. Every anxiety, every doubt, all of the digital distractions we encounter, the heavy headwinds of toxic environments, the disruptions caused by things we should say “no” to, the temptations to say “yes” to quick fixes and illicit escapes. All of these press on our pace that should be consistent and built around rest, replenishment, and emotional roominess for the people in our lives we are closest to.

Jim Collins developed a concept to capture this for the corporate leadership space: the 20-mile march. Based on the successful 1911 South Pole expedition led by Roald Amundsen (and the disastrous and deadly one led by Robert Scott), “the 20-mile march” captures the maxim that keeping a consistent pace over a journey—resisting the temptation to “wait out a storm” or press further during ideal conditions—is the pathway to both survival and success.

This is validated not just by historical anecdotes and public company data points, but by the life of the Messiah. In his thirty-year journey through anonymity, three-year march to the cross, and three-day sojourn through death, his pace was consistent, never hurrying or hiding, always saying “yes” to the right people at the right time and “no” even to the right people at the wrong time. All the while his pace measured, mature, meaningful, and marked by rest and delight.

The divine pattern in this becomes even clearer from the term itself. While we think of pace as “the speed at which something happens”, the word comes from the Latin for “step” and at root means “to stretch”.

It’s why when our pace gets out of control we don’t necessarily feel emotionally out of breath, but rather “overstretched” with our patience “wearing thin”. It’s why we “snap” when the pace of life becomes too much. We’re overstriding, and the slow break down begins to manifest in physical, mental, and relational injury.

How do we fix our stride? How do we protect our pace even as the pace of change around us accelerates? Start with a hard look at your pacesetter. When races are won and records fall in distance running, it’s almost always in conjunction with the right pacesetter.

So too with us. Do we have the right pacesetter? Or is our pacesetter the phantasm of “someone else’s life”? The mirage of “fulfilling fame”, “satisfying success”, or “assuaging achievement”? The shadow of “enough”, “finally”, or “exactly”? Can we even name what’s setting our pace? What’s directing our step?

We might be able to verbalize who should be our pacesetter—the One who says “follow me”. But he’s entrusted us with that mandate collectively. A call to be worked out in community. A pace to be set and sustained together. Discovering the sustainable pace of “a Sabbath day’s walk” not in isolation, but in unity, as sons among sons.

It’s the pace of the patient pathway to the Father’s table, no matter the darkness of the canyon.

“Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city.” Acts 1:12

5/13/21 Update: When I drafted this field note, I chose the image above because of it’s significance to me (I snapped it after returning from a hike in the Judean Hills while thinking much about the pace of my life) and its relevance to the measured nature of “a Sabbath day’s walk” referenced in the verse above.

Today, however, Jerusalem and the regions around it are suffering through a significant escalation of violence and military operations, and my thoughts and prayers go out to all being affected. As both a means of support for friends on the ground and a source of information for you, I’m including here a video update from my friend and brother Calev Myers, an incredible leader and unifier in the Middle East and globally. Please check it out for context and a very personal on-the-scene report from Jerusalem.