Two Hands Full of Wind

"At twenty-three, I believed exhaustion was proof that I was destined for something great."

Collect

Lord of wisdom and mercy,
When our ambitions outrun our discernment,
slow our steps.
When our hands grasp at too much,
teach us the freedom of release.
In this holy season of Lent,
give us an undivided heart —
that we may seek first Your kingdom
and not be mastered by lesser things.
Through Christ our Lord, Amen.

Scripture Lessons

Old Testament

Book of Ecclesiastes 4:6
“Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.”

Psalm

Book of Psalms 127:1–2
“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain… It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil.”

Gospel

Gospel of Matthew 6:24, 33
“No one can serve two masters… Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.”

Devotional Reading

     In the spring of 2001, at twenty-two years old, I opened my own shoe store in White Bluff, Tennessee. I named it Mr. B’s Shoes & Boots. I had big dreams — not just of one store, but perhaps four or five across Middle Tennessee one day.

     I had worked hard in the car business before that — selling Chevrolets and Oldsmobiles, stacking commissions, saving money, believing I could build something lasting. I still worked at the dealership even after opening the store. When I wasn’t selling cars, I was selling boots. I trained employees. I worked long hours. I tried to manage both worlds.

     I told myself it was wisdom — diversify income, protect against a slow week. But if I’m honest, it was also ambition.

My grandfather saw it before I did.

He warned me gently but firmly:
“You can’t serve two masters. Leave the dealership. Focus on your store. No one will run it like you will. It’s your dream — not theirs.”

I heard him.

I just didn’t listen.

    In 2002, I added a third master to the mix — I ran for State Representative. I had always wanted to help people, to represent my district well, to be a voice with conviction. It wasn’t just ambition. I truly cared. I believed I could do all of it. At twenty-three, the world felt conquerable.

I did well in the election for a first-time candidate against an incumbent, but I didn’t win.

    By the summer of 2003, the country was at war in Iraq. Consumer confidence dropped. Business slowed to a crawl. The dealership slowed. The shoe store slowed even more. Eventually, I had to close the store and liquidate my inventory below wholesale just to pay off debt, rent, and advertising bills.

I locked the doors on a dream.

Was I greedy?
Overconfident?
Scattered?

Maybe a little of all of it.

But what I know now is this: I was divided.

Ecclesiastes says, “Better is one handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and striving after wind.”

I had two hands full — and still reaching for more.

     Psalm 127 describes rising early and going late to rest, eating “the bread of anxious toil.” That was me. I thought exhaustion meant I was building something significant. But Jesus’ words in Matthew echo my grandfather’s warning: “No one can serve two masters.”

Or three!

Lent has a way of uncovering our masters.

Success can master us.
Reputation can master us.
Fear of not having enough can master us.
Even good desires — like helping others — can become distorted if they are not rooted in a single devotion.

     Now, more than twenty years later, I find myself in another season of forced focus. Health has slowed me down. Loss has humbled me. Grief over my mother’s passing still surfaces unexpectedly.
Letting go of places, people, and previous chapters has reopened older memories of loss — including that shoe store and the ambitions of my youth.

And yet, something is clearer now.

     At the heart of it all, I always wanted to help people. That was true in politics. It was true in business. And it is true now.

But the vehicle has changed.

     I am being narrowed — not punished. Forced to focus more deeply on writing. On teaching. On telling stories that matter. On crafting fiction and devotional reflections that might steady someone else’s weary heart. Perhaps the store closing was not just failure.

Perhaps it was early pruning.

    Perhaps God was gently teaching a young man that calling is not proven by how many fires you can tend at once — but by how faithfully you tend the one He actually gave you.

Lent strips away illusions.

It reminds us we are dust — not titans.

And yet, in the stripping, there is mercy.

I am grieving losses right now. But I am also more centered than I have ever been.

One handful.

One calling.

One Master.

Another Story

     I am not alone in learning this lesson the hard way. In 2015, business writer and entrepreneur Arianna Huffington publicly reflected on the collapse that changed her life.

     At the height of building The Huffington Post, she was sleeping four hours a night, running a global media company, traveling constantly, managing expansion, and pushing herself beyond human limits. Success was undeniable. Influence was growing. The world would have called it thriving.

   But one day, from sheer exhaustion and sleep deprivation, she collapsed in her office. She hit her head on her desk, broke her cheekbone, and woke up in a pool of blood.¹ It was not a lack of ambition that nearly destroyed her. It was too much of it.

     In interviews afterward, she said she had bought into a cultural myth — that burnout was the price of significance. That doing more meant being more. Her collapse forced her to reassess everything: work, success, priorities, health, and what truly builds a life that lasts. She later wrote that the world measures success in money and power — but we must measure it also in well-being and wisdom.

    Her fall became a pruning. Her exhaustion became a teacher.

Like me: She was building something real. She was expanding. She believed she could carry it all. She ignored the warning signs. Her body eventually forced what wisdom had already whispered. My  grandfather warned me with wisdom and  Scripture. Her body warned her with collapse.

Both stories carry the same Lenten thread:

We are not infinite.

Ambition without boundaries becomes a cruel master.

And sometimes God allows a humbling interruption to rescue us from ourselves.

Sometimes the collapse is not the end.

Sometimes it is mercy.

 

Charge

This week, ask yourself:

What masters have divided my heart?

Where am I striving after wind?

What might God be pruning — not to diminish me, but to focus me?

In Lent, let go of the second handful.

Seek first the kingdom.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus,
You who call us to undivided devotion,
forgive us for the ways we scatter ourselves.

Where we have chased wind,
gather us.
Where we have overreached,
steady us.
Where we grieve what did not last,
comfort us.

In this season of Lent,
teach us the freedom of one clear calling,
one faithful path,
one surrendered heart.

And build in us what truly lasts.

Amen.

Footnote

Thrive by Arianna Huffington; see also interviews reflecting on her 2007 collapse due to exhaustion and sleep deprivation.