So eventually we must take a leap. We must literally move our feet in a direction in which we do not know the outcome. We must be willing to live in that state of ambiguity without guarantees.
That is the necessary risk-jump and every business or humanitarian effort has had to take. It started with one person willing to risk their own comforts in their own futures for the sake of a dream birthed in faith.
Don't give up because it is hard. Don't give up when it seems like you made the wrong choice. Don't give up when you feel discouraged, unsupported, neglected by those who have committed to serve.
Right around the corner is a break. Not all breaks are good ones but they all lead to increased clarity. That ultimately is what we're after. But we will not get there without a serious amount of determination.
*So we keep climbing. And we realize that the struggle for life is life itself. There is no better way to live, no greater use of our short time on earth, than to struggle on behalf of others with our gifts. There is nothing else to do.
Though certainly we need times of recovery and rebound, we must fight. That is the best a life can be on earth. Fighting for who we are and what we have to give is where dreams and reality collide, somewhere in the tension.
Anyone who has ever pushed against reality with a dream knows this concept. At some point in the pushing you feel like you are hitting the peak, the point at which you go over the hill and then natural momentum starts to take you down.
But there are times when we must say no to pushing certain things to focus our pushing efforts. Trying to push the bike up four mountains will make a person crazy after a while. We must focus our energies which is part of the fighting process.
This focusing effort sometimes means temporary withdraw. That is where all the leadership books in the world fall a little flat. The brute reality of leadership is the constant not knowing, the constant guessing in faith and waiting on wisdom.
The reality is that in anxiety is is very hard to attract wisdom. She seems to slip out of the room when we need her most. That is why the Biblical adage: “peace is far superior to understanding.” They are obviously deeply connected.
We NEED understanding yes. But we can not find it with anxiety. If we approach our growing needs with a sort of spastic decisiveness we will inevitably miss wisdom. This is why withdraw is so powerful and must happen in such times.
Only in removing ourselves from the source of stress do we find the kind of peace we are looking for. It is not escapism. We are not running away. On the contrary, it is because we deeply care that we are intentionally creating some distance.