Skip to content 
Picture the life of Bob Wahl in three snapshots: a teenage farmhand coaxing a balky horse team across windswept Saskatchewan wheat stubble; a thirty-something entrepreneur in Chicago, hustling cookware sales by day and finishing high-school credits by night; a silver-haired missionary preaching in an unheated Ukrainian chapel lit only by flashlights after a blackout. In each scene, Bob is mid-stride, adjusting course while the ground shifts beneath him.
In his memoir Contending with Horses—titled after Jeremiah 12:5’s challenge to “run with horses” when footraces are no longer enough—Bob fleshes out seventy years of pivots: career reinventions, cross-cultural leaps, health crises, and heartbreaking loss. While most of us won’t uproot to Austria to launch youth camps or juggle car dealerships with Bible college tuition, the principles behind Bob’s flexibility are strikingly transferable. Here are five takeaways for anyone facing a season where yesterday’s playbook suddenly feels obsolete.
1.Treat Detours as Training, Not Failure
Bob’s first dream was simple: farm the family quarter-section. Then drought, debt, and a midnight prayer beside a sputtering tractor redirected him to Bible school—a choice his father initially opposed. Decades later, those agrarian lessons in endurance and improvisation became tools for managing high-pressure product launches and countless midnight repairs on camp equipment in the Alps. When circumstances boot you off one road, ask: What capacity could this detour build for the next assignment I can’t yet see? Re-labeling “setback” as “boot camp” reframes frustration as an asset-building phase rather than wasted time.
2.Keep One Foot on Stable Ground While You Pivot
Whether Bob was opening a jewelry shop, importing medical equipment, or marketing engine additives, he anchored new ventures to at least one familiar pillar—often relationships forged in previous chapters. Those trusted contacts provided honest feedback and moral ballast when risks escalated. Likewise, when you pivot—changing industries, locations, or life roles—tether the leap to something solid: a mentor you can call at midnight, a professional skill you already excel in, or a community that keeps you grounded. That single dependable foothold steadies you while the rest of your weight swings toward the unknown.
3.Let Mission, Not Ego, Drive Your Calculus
Bob’s ventures weren’t random. Each risk—whether commercial or ministerial—served a larger aim: funding missionary work, building platforms for youth discipleship, or distributing Scripture where supply lags behind hunger. Because the “why” burned brighter than the “how,” Bob could abandon sunk costs quickly when a strategy stalled; pride had less to protect. Clarify the overarching mission behind your pivot—retiring parents’ loans, mentoring underserved students, and spreading climate-smart farming. When challenges arise, a mission-centric lens helps you weigh options by impact rather than by vanity metrics like title or social-media applause.
4.Expect Resistance, but Recognize Allies in Unlikely Guises
Jeremiah’s horses symbolize forces that outrun and outmuscle human plans—illness, economic crashes, betrayal. Bob’s “horses” included cancer, depression, and his wife Beverley’s decade-long dementia. Yet in Ukraine, amid rolling power cuts, congregants braved winter nights to hear him teach, illuminating Scripture pages with cheap LED pens. Their commitment refueled his own flagging stamina. Resilience isn’t solo heroics; it’s a relay in which unexpected allies hand you fresh courage. Keep relational radar active—support may arrive through a junior colleague’s bold idea, a neighbor’s casserole, or a stranger’s podcast episode that reframes your outlook.
5.Archive Lessons Publicly to Multiply Their Reach
Bob filled journals for sixty years, eventually distilling them into memoirs that equip readers he will never meet. Documenting pivots—successes and flops—turns personal survival stories into roadmaps for others. Whether you blog, voice notes, sketch mind maps, or mentor informally over coffee, sharing your process converts isolated victories into communal resources. You’ll find that articulating lessons also clarifies them for your own next pivot.
Bringing the Principles Home
Modern life rarely allows the luxury of one straight career ladder or a predictable decade without upheaval. We navigate mergers, pandemics, technological whiplash, and shifting family roles that make yesterday’s certainty feel quaint. Bob Wahl’s journey reminds us that resilience isn’t about bulldozing through obstacles; it’s about adjusting gait mid-stride—sometimes sprinting, sometimes walking, occasionally hitching a ride on another runner’s encouragement. By viewing detours as preparation, anchoring pivots to stable supports, letting mission outweigh ego, welcoming unexpected allies, and documenting insights for the next traveler, we transform trials from derailments into crucibles that forge deeper purpose.
Life’s toughest chapters may still outrun us, but with the right mindset, we can, like Bob, learn to “run with horses”—not by matching their muscle, but by harnessing wisdom, community, and a calling that endures long after the dust settles.
Want the full story behind these insights?
Dive into Bob Wahl’s memoir Contending with Horses for a front-row seat to prairie beginnings, entrepreneurial highs, mission-field adventures, and the grace that steadied every pivot. Pick up your copy online or at your favorite bookstore and equip yourself to face your own “horses” with fresh courage.
