One of our neighbor’s kids learned how to ride a bike at an early age. That was great, but he didn’t know how to stop. He panicked and searched for a bush to crash into to stop him. Life is difficult when you can’t stop. The end result is usually a wreck and serious injury to you and others. To be successful in life, it is just as crucial to stop as well as to start. When is the last time you stopped doing something?
I can’t even get out of my neighborhood without stopping twice. Why is it so much more difficult to stop in life than it is in a car? Think about it: When is the last time you, your church or your company just stopped? Sometimes it is hard to stop because we have had the inertia of success. Our strengths can become our weaknesses.
Remember Borden Milk and its beloved Elsie the Cow? The founder of the company that invented condensed milk even had his tomb built in the shape of a condensed milk can (speaking of morbid traditions). The Borden Milk Company saw no reason to change its successful Wise Potato Chips when the new Fritos and Doritos came along. They also saw no need to update their successful Lady Borden Ice Cream when new premium brands came along like Häagen-Dazs. Poor Elsie the Cow ended up in the slaughterhouse anyway — but it was too late for the company. We may not have any Elsies in our companies or churches, but we do have a lot of sacred cows.
As a psychologist, I know that half of the battle in overcoming a dysfunction is to identify it. You have to face it to fix it. Every company or church has sacred cows. These things prevent us from doing something or changing something that would allow us to be more effective. Sometimes it is a group of people with more control than they should have. It could be as simple as a tradition that continues without a purpose.
Traditions are easy to start but hard to stop. President Taft started the seventh-inning stretch, unintentionally. He stood up to take the kinks out of his knees during a game in Washington, D.C. Thinking that he was leaving, the fans respectfully rose with him and emptied the stadium. Taft sat back down, but the tradition endured.
I consulted with a church in which the ushers wore red roses on their lapels. Newcomers were put off by the tradition, and even said they thought they were going to a funeral. I suggested that they discontinue the rose tradition. In the next few weeks, there was mass hysteria. You would have thought I had suggested they relocate to another city. Then we discovered why this was so difficult. A member of the church was making a tidy profit on the selling of the roses each Sunday. If you have trouble stopping a sacred cow, you might want to check the price of hamburger.
One church in which I consulted had the tradition of holding hands and singing at the end of each service. Church people loved it, especially the singles who could sit by the right person and get to hold hands. There was feedback that women were unable to get their husbands to stay because of the hand-holding part of the service.
To these men, holding hands with people you don’t know and singing just didn’t seem normal. The pastor stopped what was a sacred tradition. These women told the pastor they appreciated being part of a church that would change traditions so their husbands would hear the Truth. The pastor is no longer at the church. (Helpful hint: The longer the tradition, the shorter the time to plan an exit strategy.)
Why is stopping so important? Because many times you have to stop one thing before you start another. If you want to be a morning person, let me give some good advice: Stop being a night person. Do you know how a child becomes a walker? He stops crawling. He doesn’t crawl faster to become a walker. He just gets tired of crawling and decides to walk.
I learned how to swim late in life. The reason I became a swimmer is I got sick and tired of wading. The reason to stop something that is ineffective is to start something that is effective. We all get into ruts. We eat at the same restaurants and go home the same way. Let’s stop something. I’ll keep it simple. This week, stop going home the same old way. Don’t do it. Now you are forced to go home a new way. It may be better and it may not be, but you are now on your way to the best way home.
You have to know when to hold them and when to fold them. That is not in Proverbs. The great theologian, Kenny Rogers, sang that song.
This is a key to life. What are you holding that you need to fold? This week, go out there and stop something. As Christians, we celebrate that Jesus stopped death. Surely you can stop something that is slowly killing you. You might just experience some resurrection power in the process.