What Is a Gun Lap?

Dannah Gresh: In the race of life, it can be easy to get distracted and want to give up. 

Frank [Sports Commentator 1]: And that’s the gun lap, the signal for the final lap of this epic footrace! McGillicuddy, with a commanding lead, appears to be slowing down just enough to grab a cup of water. 

Chippy [Sports Commentator 2]: And you know, Frank, McGillicuddy’s consistency today has just been amazing! I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more engaging race than this one.

Frank: You know . . . wait a minute, Chippy! I believe he just walked into a . . . store? What kind of store is that?

Chippy: Uh, Frank, I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I believe he’s walked into a furniture store!

Frank: And they’re putting something in his water cup. Is that a tiny umbrella?

Chippy: McGillicuddy is now reaching for the remote, settling into a recliner, to watch . . . what . . . it appears to be a cornhole game! And, Frank, that’s not just any cornhole game. That’s the 2018 Olympic Cornhole Finals . . . which I believe you called . . . right?

Frank: Indeed . . . I . . . did, Chippy! 

Chippy: Aw! Did you see that shot?! Incredible form as he released the bag. Man, that Lithuanian team was loaded that year!

Frank: Meanwhile, McGillicuddy appears to be taking a nap!

Chippy: And . . . yup . . . there goes the water cup!

Frank: Who-o-o-a, Nellie!

Dannah [laughs]: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, co-author of You Can Trust God to Write Your Story, for June 17, 2021. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Nancy, there’s a special energy in our little recording session today. Don’t you feel that? 

Nancy: I do! Because I’m sitting across the . . . well, it’s not exactly a table. We’ve got a makeshift studio in our basement, and Robert and I are sitting almost knee-to-knee. You’re in Pennsylvania, and we have other team members who are in other places. So it’s a virtual studio. 

Dannah: Yes.

Nancy: But we have Robert Wolgemuth in the “studio” today! 

Dannah: Yay!

Robert: Oh, boy!

Nancy: I love that voice! Hi, honey.

Robert: Hi, sweetheart!

Dannah: Hello, Robert.

Robert: Hi, Dannah.

Dannah: Well, Robert, it’s been quite a while since we’ve heard from the two of you together at length since this truly unusual year began. Many of us have been praying for you, especially, because not only have you been going through this pandemic with us, but you’ve also been facing Robert’s battle with cancer. 

I don’t go anywhere where somebody doesn’t ask me, “How’s Robert doing?” Then they follow that question up with, “And, how is Nancy holding up?” In fact, I should probably say that one of our most listened-to programs this past year really describes how the two of you faced this pandemic. It’s called Coronavirus, Cancer, and Christ.

So for those of us who sat on the edge of our seat listening to that program, give us a quick update.

Nancy: Wow, well Robert and I both feel so-o-o grateful for those people who have been praying. 

Robert: We really do!

Nancy: We meet them everywhere. We hear from them, and what a sweet encouragement that has been!

One way of giving an update is to say that I’m sitting here looking at a man who is number one: alive! And number two: has hair!! He’s got his hair back! 

Dannah: Yay!

Robert: And it’s not a wig!

Nancy: It’s not a wig. But hair is insignificant compared to the fact that, as far as we know, both cancers are gone. I say “we,” because this has been a journey together—doctor appointments, checkups, follow ups, tests, things they’re keeping an eye on. Honey, how are you feeling?

Robert: Well, first of all, you have been amazing. Your companionship at almost all my appointments. And when you can’t be there in person, I FaceTime. I hold up my cell phone and the doctor and I speak with Nancy, and she asks her questions. I say to Nancy all the time, “Honey, you are a professional question-asker!” She asks good questions. 

Nancy: That’s what I do for a living! (laughter)

Robert: (That’s what I said!) Anyway, it’s been an amazing experience! The Lord is so good! We feel bolstered and lifted up by so many people. And mostly, we feel good, seriously. There are a few little latent things. I have some more scans and checkups and so forth.

The likelihood that I’ll be completely out of the woods ever is probably zero . . . but that’s alright.

Dannah: I haven’t had a front row seat to watch everything you’ve walked through. I haven’t been sitting in your home when you received the phone calls with the tough news or the phone calls with the good news. I haven’t had that much closeup experience to watch what you’ve been walking through. 

But I haven’t been exactly sitting in the “nosebleed seats” (so high up away from what’s happening). It has been such a joy to watch you walk through this with so much faith, so much trust in the Lord.

Nancy, there have been many times when you’ll leave the Revive Our Hearts studio because we’re finished working with you. Phil, our engineer for the program, and we will both sit there and kind of marvel at how you are living out so beautifully what you have been teaching for years.

You are trusting the Lord in difficult times and serving your husband so beautifully! It seems to me—I could be wrong—but between being a private nurse for your husband . . .

Nancy: Something I never could have imagined myself doing!

Dannah: . . . and also his secretary, as you set up appointments—sometimes in the middle of recording sessions . . .

Nancy: That has happened!

Dannah: Yes, when the nurses call, you answer. And then just all the paperwork of the bills and the insurance and stuff. You are serving beautifully! I’ve had a “front row” to see that. Phil has had a front row to see that. I’ve learned a lot; I’ve been taking notes!

Nancy: It’s been a privilege. There have been challenges. It’s interesting that right before the pandemic hit and right before cancer, times two, came into our lives; Robert and I had just finished writing a book called You Can Trust God to Write Your Story. 

And, Honey, when that book came out in the fall of 2019, we were healthy and in a good place and enjoying and settling into sweet marriage years. Things were just strong, and things were going swimmingly well. 

Robert: They were. But you shouldn’t write a book like that unless you believe it.

Nancy: And what we found out this year is that we do believe it; that it’s true, that God really can be trusted to write our story.

Robert: We do believe it. Amen!

Nancy: But what I love is, not only looking back, reflecting on that book, but during this past year, amazingly, you have written another book! Each of us has written over twenty books now, but as we’re recording this conversation, your latest book has just come out.

We just got our first copy in our hands this week. I confiscated it, and I stayed up late last night reading it from cover to cover. And, Honey, I think this is your best one ever. It’s incredible!

Robert: Thank you, how precious.

Nancy: We’re going to talk about its message. What I love is that it’s a book that’s been written out of the season of life that you’re in—that we’re both in. You’ve had a chance to live out the message that you’ve been writing all this year. I think this book is going to have a huge impact in the lives of men (to whom it’s primarily addressed), but also to women like me, who love men who are in their “gun lap.” That’s the title. We’ll talk about what that means. (But also women as we go through changes in our seasons of life.) So you’ve written it out of the crucible, the laboratory of life, and I’m so grateful!

Robert: Yes, I’ve probably been in, I don’t know, five-hundred marketing meetings in the last forty years in the book business. The questions are always, “What’s the content?” and “Who is the reader?” This time, I’m the reader.

I’ve written this book kind of selfishly. I’ve written this book for myself, because I’m in the gun lap (we’ll talk about what that means). But it’s been a really wonderful experience. I’ve also been able to interview close friends, family, brothers, and so forth who have given me great insight into what they’re experiencing during these years.

Dannah: Okay, I can’t really wait any longer: what is gun lap!? Tell me where the title of this book came from!

Robert: Well, if you’re a runner and you run on a track, and you run long distance . . . For example, let’s say we run the two-mile around the track. The track is a quarter of a mile, so that’s eight times around the track. 

So when the race starts, the starter puts his arm in the air and fires a starter pistol and then the race is on. Well, when the lead runner begins his final lap (his eighth lap, finishing his seventh lap), the starter fires the gun again. That’s called the gun lap.

Nancy: So it’s not the end of the race, but it’s the lap that leads to the end of the race. 

Robert: Exactly! The last lap.

Dannah: Here’s how a former middle distance runner, Mike Neises, explains it.

Mike Neises: You get a gun that fires at the starting line, and then there’s another gun that signals that you’re on your last lap. It’s usually a pretty good adrenaline rush when you hear the gun go off—at least it was for me. It just spurred you on, knowing that the finish line was ahead.

Dannah: Ralph Foote is another man who understands the gun lap concept. Robert, you saw Ralph run at your mutual alma mater, Taylor University. Ralph was setting some amazing school records! You sat down with him to reminisce just a little bit.

Ralph Foote: The thrill of the crowd in unison raising as you go around that lap . . .

Dannah: So that is where your title of this book Gun Lap comes from.

Nancy: As you were writing this book you were thinking of men who are nearing or in their retirement years, when a lot of things change. They’re not at the end of the race, but they’re in a different season.

Robert: That’s right. I was motivated to write it because of COVID, because of cancer. I’m thinking, “You know what? I’m experiencing something I’ve never experienced before, and that’s just this sense that I’m getting old, and I’m probably in my last lap (and if not in my last lap, maybe in my last few laps). 

So I wanted to write some encouragement for other men in my situation. And you coming alongside has been an amazing thing. Of course, it is our hope, Nancy, that women—wives, daughters, nieces, friends—will be encouraged to let their men read this book and be encouraged by what we are saying to them.

Nancy: It’s easy to think, “My gun lap is going to start at (age, whatever), when I retire.” But none of us knows what that age will be when we really are in our final lap. I’m thinking about my dad, who at age fifty-three dropped dead of a heart attack while playing tennis. He was gone before he hit the ground.

He had no idea that those last months and years of his life were actually his gun lap. But as I look back, I think about how he had been preparing to get to the finish line. He had no idea that it was coming—or when it was coming—I’m sure he thought it would be much further down the road. But he had really thought through his goals for his family, for his business, for his walk with the Lord. When he was gone, he was done, he was ready. He had said to his kids, he had said to his wife, he had put some things in motion that he had no idea would be so needed and so timely . . . but it was his gun lap. He was ready when he got to the finish line. 

Robert: One of the things that happens when you’re writing a book is, at some point, your editor is going to say to you, “Who are you going to dedicate this book to?” That’s always kind of a fun thing. This is a gift that you’re going to surprise somebody with. 

Well, just to your point, Honey, this book is dedicated to a twenty-year-old man who dropped dead—the son of friends of ours. He was a student at Boyce College in Louisville. He was hanging out with a bunch of friends and just dropped dead. 

I write in the dedication, “How strange,” you might think, “for a book written for men in their forties and fifties—getting ready for their sixties and seventies—to be dedicated to a man who stepped into heaven at the age of twenty.”

Tim Challies said this about his son, Nick (Tim and Aileen are Canadians, good friends of ours). I watched it livestream and I thought, “Oh, I’m going to put this as part of the dedication to Nick.” Here’s what Tim said: 

Each one of us is given a race to run; some are called to run a long race, some are called to run a short race. What matters is not how long the race is, but how well we run it.”

So the book is dedicated to a twenty-year-old man. Just to your point, we never know.

Nancy: So in a way what you’re saying is, we all need to be running as if this were our gun lap.

Robert: That’s right, it’s true—doing the right things, pulling the racquet back. The old adage is, “Pack your lunch before you get hungry.” You know, a bologna sandwich at six o’clock in the morning may sound disgusting, but at noon it sounds great. So pack your lunch before you’re hungry.

Nancy: Honey, one of the things I’ve heard you talking about as we’ve been walking this gun lap journey, but also as you were writing this book, Gun Lap . . . We’ve had a lot of Gun Lap conversations at the dinner table over the past year.

Robert: Yeah, let’s say! 

Nancy: We’ve talked about how as we’re getting older, there are things we’re forgetting. In fact, we have some friends who are forgetting a lot. We’re looking at that, and we’re saying, “That could be us before too long.” Also there are things that are just hard—like battling with changes in technology and not knowing how to fix something that’s going wrong on our laptop.

In fact, your laptop kind of blew up and fell apart as you were working on this book. These are things that are part of that gun lap journey. How can we counsel our hearts according to truth about those things when we feel like we’re getting more feeble, more frail? . . . and we are. So how are we supposed to think about that?

Robert: Okay, I’m going to ask you to repeat a little phrase you’ve said a thousand times in the last six years since we got married. It starts with the word “breathe.”

Nancy: “Breath grace in, and breathe grace out.”

Robert: That’s not just for you and me with each other. That’s not just for our family or for our friends. That’s for us personally. I need to breathe grace in and breathe grace out . . . and even laugh about the fact that I walked into this room, I turned around three or four times, and I walked back out, because I have no idea why I walked into the room!

So I just need to take a deep breath and breath grace in and breath grace out, because it’s going to happen. That’s a given, so I’m either going to face this as an angry man or a grace-filled man.

Nancy: One of my favorite verses to send people on their birthday, particularly as the numbers mount higher and higher, is Proverbs 4:18, which says, “But the path of the righteous is like the [dawn of day] which shines brighter and brighter until full day.”

So you think of “dawn of day” as being like birth: it’s fresh, it’s new, you’re young and vigorous and you’re growing. But Scripture says, “The path of the righteous is like the dawn of day, which shines brighter and brighter.” Well, you don’t think of aging being that you’re shining brighter and brighter, because there comes a point when there’s a descent, when there’s a diminished strength and capacity. 

But the encouragement to me from that verse has been that if Christ is in me, even as my body or my mental faculties may be in decline (that’s part of living in a fallen world), the life of Christ within me—my spirit—can be getting brighter and brighter until “fullness of day.” 

What is that full day? It’s when we get to the finish line. The hope that we have for ourselves and for each other is that, yes our bodies may be declining, yes, our mental faculties may be declining, yes, our ability to do certain tasks may be declining, but our spirits can be getting more and mighty. The life of Christ is within us! That’s what we aspire for people to see and experience as we’re in our gun lap.

Robert: Aw, that is so good! In fact, yesterday you sent me a text with a link to music. So if King David were part of this conversation and we were saying to him, “So, what should we do? Okay, laugh; that’s good. Read the Word, that’s good.” Do you know what he would say? He would say, “Sing.” 

And now, because of technology, we can find every kind of music we can imagine on our cell phones, and we can play music. You can look it up and see an old hymn that you remember, or new music that’s inspiring and uplifting. So, don’t forget music!

Nancy: Don’t forget to sing! I think about somebody whose life is singing. She’s further in her gun lap than you and I are. But it’s our friend Susan Hunt, who has spoken at a number of Revive Our Heart conferences; she’s been on our broadcast; she’s been on our Grounded podcast.

Here’s a woman who is now around the age of eighty. She’s physically frail, she’s widowed, she’s in a hard season of life. She has no “cool factor.” She’s not trying to look young or act young or be young, because she knows she’s not young.

But when she opens her mouth, whether it’s behind a microphone or on a platform at Revive Our Hearts, people listen . . .young people listen!! There is a beauty and a brightness and a fullness in that woman’s life. 

We look at her and we think, I want to be like that when I’m her age! [Robert: Exactly!] Well I’m not going to be that way at age eighty if I’m not becoming that way at age sixty-two. 

Robert: That’s right, that’s so good.

Nancy: To have models like that who show us there really can be a growing intimacy with Christ, a growing beauty, a growing fruitfulness. Susan Hunt is saying fewer words in fewer settings, but when she speaks, her words are really powerful and people are listening. That’s the kind of person we want to be, whether on or off the platform. That’s an inspiration.

The principles you’ve addressed in this book, though you’re speaking to men, really speak to us as women, too. I think for men, maybe the pistol goes off maybe at retirement or thereabouts, or their vocational life changes significantly.

But for a lot of women, it feels like that pistol goes off when they hit the empty nest stage if they are wives and moms. I’ve talked with a lot of women who have said, “I’ve been raising my kids all these years; now they’re out of the house.”

It’s especially true of moms who were maybe homeschooling or they’ve just put a lot into those years. Then their kids are gone, and they’re like, “What’s my job now? What am I supposed to be doing?” There are changes in our life seasons, and the culture would have us believe that if you’re not young and you’re not at the peak of your career, that you’re wasted, you’re useless, you’re done.

You want to give men and women a vision that these could be your most fruitful and productive years.

Robert: That is so true! That would be a dream, that men would read this book and be encouraged along those lines. In fact, I get together occasionally with college classmates. We had our fiftieth college reunion a few years ago. These are very close, precious friends.

But it’s really interesting, when one of us turns fifty, there’s a breakfast or a lunch or a party and they give silly gifts . . . and everybody laughs. It’s funny. But there’s not as much funny stuff when you turn sixty. When you turn seventy, it’s not funny at all, because we’re all experiencing this.

We have a text thread, and when one of us goes to the hospital or goes in for a scan or a test or a doctor appointment, we share it with each other. We pray together . . . but it’s not funny! I’m just telling you that this wasting away thing . . . our bodies are wasting away.

In fact, it’s so encouraging to read passages like 2 Corinthians 4:16 that says our bodies are wasting away (well, amen to that!) but our inner selves are being renewed day by day! Well there’s the message.That’s the gun lap. 

Our bodies are wasting away. In fact, the headline on the back of the book says, “You may think you are too old to run fast, but you are not too old to run well!” That’s the message of this book.

Nancy: Yes, Honey, I love that passage in 2 Corinthians. It brings to mind another one in Psalm 92 that says, 

The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God.They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green to declare that the Lord is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him (vv. 12–15). 

This is a biblical vision for getting older.

Robert: Ah, that’s good! That’s incredible!

Nancy: Our physical energy and strength may be sapped, may be diminishing, and we may even hit periods of physical limitations. I’m thinking of Corrie ten Boom who had a stroke. For the last five years of her life she couldn’t talk, but was rich in spirit. How God used that woman during those years!

So to say there’s something in us—the life of Christ in us—that can be rich and full and growing and impacting on others in this season is a great vision for us to have as we get older.

Dannah: Our friend, Bob Lepine, from FamilyLife Today explains that this time of life can be a real struggle for men as they re-examine priorities and how they measure their sense of usefulness.

Bob Lepine: I think for most of us as guys in this new season of life—in the gun lap years—we are starting to have to figure out that our value, our worth, our identity is not connected necessarily to our productivity. 

We are not the sum of what we do; we are more than that, we are children of God. We have an identity that is different than our productivity. And for so many years we’ve seen our value, we’ve been cheered on, we’ve been rewarded for what we do. Now we’re in a season where the doing is diminished.

So for a wife to bless and encourage her husband in this season, she can help remind him that his value is not in his productivity—it’s not in him being able to perform as he used to perform in the marketplace. Maybe even as guys, we start to get tired earlier. We don’t have as much energy as we used to have. Age takes a toll on us.

It can be easy for a wife to look at her husband and say, “He doesn’t contribute the way he used to; he doesn’t do as much as he used to.” Well, that’s part of the aging process for all of us. So the affirmation, the encouragement to be a cheerleader, even when your husband is feeling like, “Do I still have value? Because I can’t do what I used to do.”

Or if he feels like, “People don’t want me. They’re not asking me the way they used to ask me to be these things.” For a wife to be able to say, “You still have great value! There are kingdom priorities that we can address together. We can pray for people together. We can volunteer at our local church together. We can invest our lives together in things that matter.”

They’re going to be different things than they were before the gun lap years, but they’re still important things and meaningful things. It’s what we can do and what we can contribute. A wife can cheer her husband on as he finds those new activities, those new opportunities to be useful and to be purposeful for the kingdom.”

Robert: So here’s a very familiar passage of Scripture from Isaiah chapter 40, starting in verse 29 through 31 [CSB]. Here’s what it says:

He [that is the Lord] gives strength to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Youths may become faint and weary, and young men stumble and fall but those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint. (CSB)

So here’s an interesting sequence. (I never saw this before!) It starts talking about youth, and youths soar. And when we were youths we soared.

Then it goes to running, which isn’t quite soaring, but you’re still in the game, and then walking and not fainting. So you see the descending sequence of what we can do physically. But this is a promise for those who trust in the Lord. He will renew our strength. Whether we’re soaring or running or walking, He is the One who gives us strength.

Dannah: Thank you, Robert. I have never seen that progression before. I’ve been kind of hung up on the soaring part. As I look back at my seasons of life change, including empty nest for example, feeling just gut-punched at the loss and missing my children and the sadness of it.

There are seasons in our life where soaring and running aren’t even probably appropriate, and yet we can still walk and not faint. What a beautiful thought!

Nancy: That takes us to the subtitle of this book Gun Lap, which is Staying in the Race with Purpose. It’s a call not to get sidelined, not to quit running, not to quit walking, doing whatever God gives you strength to do—to stay in there and do it with purpose!

Dannah: Bill Elliff had a comment on the importance of being intentional in this phase of life. 

Bill Elliff: When I transitioned from almost fifty years of being a senior pastor, my greatest advice came from my dear friend Robert Lewis, the founder of Men’s Fraternity. He said, “Don’t do like I did; be sure you have something to go to.” 

As I thought through that with our elder and leadership team, God provided a wonderful avenue of ministry for me that could be one of the most exciting that I’ve ever experienced. I pray that I’ll be used by God right up to the end, for His glory.

Nancy: I know, Robert, we’ve talked about how many people in our season of life are just retiring without any intentionality or thought or prayer about what God has for them in the next season. And we’re looking at that and we’re thinking, What a waste! How different that could look.

Robert: Well, yes, there are able-bodied older folks, like us, who are sort of parking themselves. I don’t mean to be critical, but they’re playing shuffleboard or square dancing for the rest of their lives . . . and others who are doing their best to stay in the race with purpose.

Dannah: You know, Robert, you’re not the first person to compare life to a long distance race. In fact, here’s how Mike describes Steve Prefontaine’s running.

Mike: Steve Prefontaine was a distance runner in the 1970s, and his strategy of wanting to run faster each lap really was born out of the fact that a lot of distance runners then would just bunch up. And everybody would run fairly slowly; nobody would be pushing themselves and exerting themselves until the last lap, and then they would start sprinting.

He didn’t like that strategy. He wanted to press ahead over the full course of the race. I’ve always loved that about leaning in, running hard—not coasting, not holding anything back.

Dannah: The apostle Paul wrote about that in several places in his letters. Listen to how your buddy Mike describes Paul’s words. 

Mike: Scripture calls us to be faithful. Faithfulness is an active concept; it’s not passive. We’re to be faithful in all that we do—faithful in little things, faithful in whatever the task is. So it’s that idea that, if you look at it in a race context, the starting gun goes off and you need to start moving forward. 

The analogy with Steve Prefontaine is that you don’t hold back, and you don’t wait for the last lap. You’re pressing forward on every lap. You’re continually striving to be better in the life analogy—sanctification, if you will—serving, learning, growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, and applying that in your season—whether it be in your marriage or when you’re raising your kids or when you have grandkids, and then in your careers, what the pathway looks like there. 

As I approach the end of my active career, my wife and I have had multiple conversations about how we don’t see retirement in the world’s way of stopping and just relaxing.

It’s almost as if the focus becomes inward in retirement. It’s about “me.” It’s about, “I’ve worked and I deserve this.” We just don’t see that biblically, and we don’t see that for ourselves. My wife was an encouragement to me, when an opportunity came up at sixty-eight to make a career change at a time when many people have already retired or they’re planning to retire soon.

Part of our prayer and decision making was, if I were to do that, I needed to make a commitment beyond seventy, which is normal retirement age. I had to recalibrate and say, “Can I do this until I’m seventy-five? Do I want to? Should I do it?”

She was an encouragement to me to say, “Let’s take that step of faith, and let’s move in a new direction with new challenges and new things to learn and develop.” It’s been really refreshing. It’s been hard, but that’s what the gun lap is. Again, back to the analogy: if you’ve run your race hard, you still need to keep going, and you don’t pull back.

Robert: I had an incredibly sobering conversation last week with a very close friend in my business, in my industry. I hadn’t talked to him for a long time, maybe six months. He answered the phone, and I said, “What’s wrong?” 

He opened his heart and said, “I retired from my job (he’s my age). I’m worthless! I wake up in the morning, and I lie there and I think, There is no reason to live!” This is an incredibly gifted, brilliant man! He’s out of stuff to do, and he feels worthless and useless. 

Since that phone call, I’ve texted him a Bible verse every day. Sometimes he responds, that’s okay. I don’t mind if he doesn’t. But this is a serious time for a lot of guys. Like you said, Nancy, women might feel some of this when they’re empty-nested.

But when a guy walks away from his career that was so much of who he was and the connections that he had with friends and colleagues and so forth, when that’s gone, he may feel useless. This message is really for them.

Nancy: And even if he doesn’t think he’s useless, he may feel that others think he’s useless, because our culture so prizes youth and vitality and strength. He may feel like others are kind of putting him on a shelf.

Robert: Yes, that’s right, so true. My friend and I kind of laughed. We were pleasant on some of the call. We talked about when we wake up in the morning, and we turn our bodies and we sit on the edge of our beds with our feet on the floor, and you kind of gather yourself.

If you’re an older guy and you’re listening to this, you get it. You don’t just jump out of bed and run downstairs. You sit there, and you kind of gather yourself. Well, this book is meant to help you gather yourself, kind of collect your wits, and look back on your life with gratitude of how the Lord has sustained you and given you wisdom and maybe children or grandchildren. 

This is meant to be an encouragement, this is not meant to kind of complain and whine and say, “Yeah, life is terrible! and “What are we going to do?” and “It’s a downward spiral!” 

Like you said, Nancy, our culture doesn’t celebrate this part. It celebrates youth, fitness. I mean, how many times have I seen that ad where that guy is running and he looks like Charles Atlas! Ha ha. Who doesn’t know who Charles Atlas is?

Dannah: Me! I don’t know who Charles Atlas is! Tell me who Charles Atlas is!

Robert: Okay, there was this ad years ago where this skinny kid was with his girlfriend on the beach. This big strong guy comes up and kicks sand in his face. And so this guy says, “You know what? I’m going to get big and strong and beat that guy up!” 

That was an ad for the Charles Atlas Fitness Program. I think he was Mr. Universe or something. Google it, Dannah, you’ll find him! 

Dannah: Okay, I shall!

Nancy: You’re educating both of us!

Robert: But that guy running isn’t me. I look at that guy and I say, “You know, I’m doing my best to treat my body well (in fact, there’s a chapter in the book about this), but when I get up in the morning and look in the mirror, I look like a newborn muskrat!

Dannah: Oh, no!

Nancy: Not true!

Dannah: You know, Robert, as you say that, my heart is just breaking, because I cannot imagine my husband feeling that. As a wife, I would want to understand that and minister. Have you struggled with that sense of uselessness?

Robert: Yes, absolutely! Part of it is physical. The other part just is, people don’t need me like they used to. My Inbox used to be filled with emails. My phone used to ring off of the hook, or out of my pocket! It doesn’t anymore. People don’t need me like they used to, so absolutely!

My daddy when he was in his eighties was sitting in his study and I walked into the room and knelt down next to him. I said, “Dad, how do you feel?” 

He looked at me and said—I’ll never forget it—“I feel useless!” This was a man who had accomplished all kinds of wonderful, amazing things around the world! 

And he’s sitting there in his study, and he’s feeling useless. I understand that. I really, really do.

Dannah: Your brother, Dan Wolgemuth, understands that, too. He says . . .

Dan Wolgemuth: What I know is that, for me, it’s easy to find identity in the title written on a business card or maybe the logo that’s on that card or retrospectively to look back at key milestones in both a professional career and a personal journey.

But the gun lap is different, and the identity shifts. Without understanding that, I think what you find is that you flounder somewhere between wanting to cling to what was behind you and trying to reinvent who you are going forward.

I think the loss of identity, purpose, dignity in some fashion can be so debilitating that in a sense not only do you flounder in the days ahead, but in some ways, you run the risk of diminishing the impact you’ve had in the past, because you can continue to cling to something that no longer is really connected directly to your leadership.

I think there needs to be incredible intentionality around identity: “Who am I? Who has God made me to be?”. . . and a focus on some of what will remain in front of you. I think about Ephesians 2:10, we’re God’s masterpiece made in Christ for good works that were designed for us at the foundation of the earth. 

This promise from God for meaningful purpose doesn’t end when I retire. It isn’t concluded when I get my first Social Security check. It is clear that God purposes me, even in a place in my life where I have shifted away from some of the more intense leadership roles that I played . . .

Having a companion—specifically in my case a daughter, two sons, my wife—who helps me process through what does it mean to continue to have meaning and purpose in life, some of that is redirected into smaller circles. 

Whereas I might have had impact on a fairly broad constituency, now that constituency shrinks a bit, but that doesn’t diminish the importance. It just focuses the attention. I think that’s very important.

When I think about how can I serve those who are closest to me in a way that underscores their importance, the stewardship that God has given me to make sure that I’m investing in a generation, in relationships that will outlive and will outlast me.

So, one of the key aspects of this is being confessional in understanding that, at certain points in my life, my purpose, identity was rooted in profession or title or responsibility. Much of that was noble and good and righteous. 

It doesn’t mean that moving away from that diminishes God’s call or character or dignity in my life. 

I think being able to verbalize some of that . . . Certainly that came out of a chapter at a time in Gun Lap as you looked at various aspects . . . Whether it’s, how do we communicate with ourselves? How do we preach to ourselves—much like David did in the psalms. “Why so downcast, O my soul?” Well, maybe the conversation is, why are you discouraged by the fact that nobody is calling you anymore, they’re not pulling you into some key decisions, or a budget just got set and you weren’t in the room? Why are you downcast, why are you discouraged by that? 

The fact is that God still has a plan, and to the extent that I understand that this new lap requires me to have a new vision is a wonderful gift that I think processing this gun lap concept has provided for me.

Dannah: If you’re married to a man who is approaching this stage of life, or maybe you’re the daughter of someone who is, you’ll want to be sure to get a copy of Robert Wolgemuth’s book Gun Lap: Staying in the Race with Purpose.

Robert’s book is available for a special price from us here at Revive Our Hearts. You can find the details when you visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1–800–569–5959. 

So how can a wife encourage her husband in the gun lap years? We’re going to talk about that with Robert Wolgemuth tomorrow. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts!.

Cheering you all the way to the finish line, Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

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