On the Blog!

Tag: risktaking

  • What does brave look like?

    What does brave look like?

    If I told you that we should pursue bravery and not perfection, what does this look like?  Do we have to buy armour, practice our sword skills or take up martial arts?  Must we jump out of planes or climb huge mountains just to be considered brave?  Maybe. Maybe not. 

    What if brave is doing something that makes you scared; like scared of being rejected, not liked, being criticised or even failing?  Maybe brave is being imperfect at something until you get better. Maybe brave is feeling foolish until you feel confident.  Brave is speaking up even when your voice wobbles. Brave is having and expressing your opinion knowing that not everyone agrees with. As Brene Brown says “Sometimes the bravest and the most important thing you can do is just show up.” 

    Perfectionism kills bravery.  It paralyses us and prevents us from exploring, taking risks and being adventurous.  Getting something perfect or being perfect is both an illusion and a lie.  We will never be perfect in this life. We will never be without flaws and imperfections. It is unlikely that we will get it right first time.  Aiming for perfection can paralyse us and it certainly robs us of life and living.

    When was the last time that you tried something new and pushed yourself outside of your comfort zone?  I know that the older I get the more awkward I feel in new situations.  It feels safer to work at getting perfect in whatever I already know rather than try something new as a novice. 

    My husband is working on getting his pilots license. Now that is something to be afraid of!  Falling out of the sky or crashing.  The crazy thing though is that is not what he needs to be brave about.  Being brave for him is not giving up when he cannot get his landing or take-off perfect.  It is being back at school having to study, sit exams and getting marked again.

    To me bravery is leaving the shallows and diving in.  When we stay in the shallows we are safe, we are comfortable, our hair doesn’t get messed up, we don’t get sand in our swimmers- but we don’t learn to swim there either.  Diving in means taking a risk. We might get dumped by the wave, we might get water up our noses and in our ears; but it is exhilarating and tests our limits and, in the process, we realise we are living; we are swimming and no longer paddling.  We are no longer a spectator but a participant of life. 

    I take comfort from Scripture and in a God, who says “Be strong, and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”   May you find comfort too in these words as you pursue bravery this week! 

    Bravery for you may be different for me.  What is it this week that you will brave?  Remember, baby steps are fine.  So are flying leaps. 

    “What if I fall; Oh, but my darling, what if you fly!”  – Erin Hanson

    Photo by Arthur Lugovoy on Unsplash

  • The world needs one talented persons too

    The world needs one talented persons too

    What talent has God given you and I that we have not used?  Maybe we have thought it so tiny that we have not dared to use it or grow it. Perhaps you like me considered using it but then looked at what others have and counted this talent as insignificant in comparison. So, we bury it and spend our time and effort doing anything else except that which we were called to do.  

    In the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30), the Master calls the servant who did this with the one-talent entrusted to him-‘lazy and evil’.  At the very least, the Master said, he could have taken a safe investment approach (and put it in the bank). The other servants who took what they were entrusted with and invested it, were blessed with a hundred percent return. 

    Sometimes I think, we forget that our talents are a gift from God himself. Our response should be one of faith and not fear. This involves taking risks using our talents to love God and others. 

    While our talents differ from the next person, at the end of our lives we will be called to give an account.  Our talents are not given without thought. God himself has also equipped us with the capacity for investing these.  Why then are some of us filled with doubt and prefer to hide our talent instead of taking a risk? 

    I have come to realise that much of my strengths are not necessarily the talents God has given me.  Much of my responses to life and the world have been ways I have learned to protect my self and please others. More often than not I have been exceptionally busy doing everything but the very thing I have been made to do.  

    Why then is it so difficult for some of us to invest this one talent given by God himself?  Perhaps, like me that is because it is a place of deep vulnerability.  We must leave behind what is comfortable and safe, and enter into a space not planned for nor can we always control the outcome.  We are uncomfortable with being a novice, with failure and with embarrassment. We have chosen to hide rather than take a risk.

    God has both gifted and equipped us with the capacity to use the talent we have been given. We need not fear embarrassment or failure.  Perhaps a few knocks and tumbles, as a child learns to walk, but you and I were born for this!

    The world is waiting for you and I to use our talent to serve God and others.  It is poorer for the talents unused or hidden.  Imagine how silent the woods would be if no bird sang except for those who sang best. (Henry Van Dyke)

    Will you join me this week in daring to use the one talent you have been gifted by God? The world needs every single one of us one-talented persons.

    Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash