Halftime By Bob Buford

[Tarja Rabito]

InHalftime, Buford provides encouragement and insight to propel your life on a new course to true significance—and the best years of your life. Buford focuses on this important time of transition to the second half of your life, giving you the tools you need to:

This updated and expanded 20th anniversary edition of Halftime also includes questions for reflection at the end of each chapter, brand new stories of men and women enjoying a second half of significance, and specific halftime assignments to guide you into your second-half mission.

"According to Bob Buford, the first half of life is a quest for success; the second is a quest for significance. Bob should know; he has achieved the first and is showing us the latter. You'll find this book to be unique, inspiring, and practical. Read it and finish strong!"

"This book is for successful people who want more fulfillment in their lives and realize it won't come from the next victory, the next sale, the next conquest, or significant increase in their bottom line. Let Bob Buford be your guide to make sure your best years are ahead of you."

I knew perfectly well what I believed about business strategies and practices, family relationships, and the importance of friends. But I had not decided how I was going to reconcile all of these competing interests. And, as for the most important issue of all, my faith life, I knew what I believed, but I didn't really know what I planned to do about what I believed.

It was then that I started to wrestle with what I wanted out of the second half of my life. I was gripped with an unformed but very compelling idea that I should make my life truly productive, not merely profitable. Making a lot of money has its benefits, but what was I leaving behind that would make a difference in the world? Something was telling me that there was more to life than money. I began to reckon with the implications of the seasons of my life and to listen for the sound of the gentle stillness that breaks forth, unexpectedly, after the fire.

In the Scriptures, Jesus Christ taught that he had come to earth so that his followers might have abundant life, life to the fullest. That's a wonderful sentiment. And I think its point is missed by many people who think that religion is restrictive and forbidding, who think that Jesus came to scowl and scold and say, "No!" The Jesus I had come to know and love was leading me to the paths of a large life, not a small or narrow one. He was asking me to say a loud "Yes!" to a life packed with significance.

The issue for me was not belief. I was given the gift of belief in God at an early age. But for most of my first half, I was, to use a sports metaphor, stranded on second base. Consider the diagram on the next page, the concept of which first came to me from pastor and author Rick Warren.

First base is taking the simple, childlike step of belief, which is all that is required to become a member of God's family. For me it was a simple acceptance that what Jesus said about himself in the Bible was true. This step involves what Kierkegaard called "a leap of faith." Faith doesn't deny reason, but it is different than reason. It accepts, as a gift from God, a different set of capacities. Without faith we are spectators to affairs of the heart and soul. With faith we can go on to engage the other two capacities, our rational and emotional senses, on the journey of personal growth to second base.

Like the majority of people who attend church and express a belief in God, I was comfortable standing on second base, making sure I believed the right things. I went to church on Sunday, listened to a sermon to strengthen my beliefs, and any "doing" was pretty much limited to putting some money in the offering plate and volunteering to teach a Sunday school class.

There is nothing wrong with belief. It's really the only thing God requires of us to receive his gift of eternal life. But God desires so much more for us than just right thinking. Faith expressed in behavior is "the most excellent way." Paul speaks of this in his great chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13, which ends, "Now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." The Greek word for love, agape, is exactly the same as the word for charity. Charity is the expression of love. It is as if faith and hope were acquired on the journey to second base in order to equip us for the second-half journey toward home base.

Third base involves becoming a follower by expressing our faith in the form of concrete action, usually in a religious setting, either a church or a parachurch organization. And then we are finally on the last stretch, the journey to home base. This stage involves making ourselves what Gordon MacDonald has called "kingdom builders." This means finding the mission in the world that has been specifically designed by God for each of us to do. It is what the Greeks called "destiny," what poet John Donne referred to when he said, "No man is an island, entire of itself."

The second half of the baseball diamond is about good works. It is not at all separate from the first half, which is about belief, but grows out of that belief and gives it integrity. Paraphrasing James's famous line, "Faith without works is dead," I would put it this way: "Faith without works dies." The life of faith must become a life of individual responsibility. The legs and hands must follow the heart and the head, or the body is not whole.

While God would like to see all of us hit a home run, most Christians never get beyond belief. A 2007 Gallup poll reported that 82 percent of Americans declare themselves to be Christians, which ought to be enough to infuse solid biblical values into all areas of culture. I do not doubt Gallup's findings, but I must tell you I do not see nearly that much evidence of Christian faith in our society. I believe that is because most of us are stuck somewhere between first and second base.

In the first half of life, there is barely enough time to go beyond second base. We are hunter-gatherers, doing our best to provide for our families, to advance our careers, and to pass our beliefs and values on to our children. In addition, for most men, and certainly a growing number of women, the first half finds us in our warrior mode. We need to prove to ourselves and others that we can accomplish something big, and the best way to do that is to become increasingly focused and intense.

I think of the first half as a season in which to develop faith and learn more about the unique way the Bible approaches life. The second half, when the pressure lets up, seems to be more the time when most people round second base and begin to do something about the faith they have developed. That's how it was for me.

In The Odyssey, the epic telling of the life of Odysseus, two great forces are pulling at Odysseus: work and home. He yearns to get home, yet he enjoys the battles along the way. Do you feel a kinship to him? During the first half, we too are pulled between the desire to be with our families and the adventure of trying to make it in our careers. Is it any wonder we do not hear that still, small voice calling us to something better?

The first half of life has to do with achieving and gaining, learning and earning. The majority do this in the most ordinary of ways: getting an education, entering the workforce, starting a family, buying a house, earning enough money to provide for needs as well as a few wants, setting goals, and climbing toward them. Some chase the prize in a more spectacular, aggressive fashion: closing a major deal, winning the big case, acquiring through leveraged buyouts and mergers, doing whatever it takes to make it to the top. Either way, few leave time in the first half for listening to God. If we have any spiritual interests, they usually take their form in typical first-half fashion: serving on the church building committee, teaching a Sunday school class, or organizing the annual stewardship campaign.

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