The Uncertainty of the Unknown
Sep 30 in Courage, Learning to fly
How did Abram feel when God asked him to leave his country, his people and his father’s household and go to the land God would show him? (Genesis 12) We are told ‘Abram left, as the Lord told him’. Was that decision instantaneous or did he struggle to make that choice to leave?
Change is not always an easy decision to make and especially if you are taking a leap of faith into an unspecified future with no physical guarantees. It will require you to break up your old encampment and jump into the unknown whilst giving up the familiar, the place where you feel safe, secure and most importantly, in control.
The mother eagle cares and nurtures the eaglets as they grow; however there comes a time as they reach a certain age that it is time for them to learn to fly – if they are to survive. She then begins to break up the nest, twig by twig until the nest is broken up and the baby eaglet has nothing to hold on to; the eaglet begins to fall. As it falls it has two options: To fold in its wings, fall and die, or to raise its wings and fly.
Giving up control is the hardest part of the exercise. Sam Keen took up trapeze jumping at the age of 60 – a childhood dream. Here an excerpt from his book: ‘Learning to Fly’:
‘the leap from the trapeze to the catcher is a flight from fear to basic trust … between the ‘hep’ and the catch there is a journey that leads from reason to faith, from doubt to trust … On the single swinging trapeze I’m in control. It’s all me. I trust myself and know my own strength and limitations but don’t have to depend on anyone else … (the jump) requires trust and surrendering control … all risks are folly, it is only after a successful flight to the arms of the catcher that the risky decision to trust is seen as the essence of wisdom … beware of the paralysis of analysis – trying to foresee, plan and control everything in advance of action.’
The jump is both thrilling and terrifying at the same time and the more we think about it the more we will find reasons not to make the jump and yet, so necessary, for our own growth and development. We need to be willing to stretch both our mind but our abilities too. According to Liz Bohannon there are 4 stages to personal growth: 1. Unconscious Incompetence (you don’t know that you don’t know anything) 2. Conscious Incompetence (you suddenly realise all that you don’t know) 3. Conscious Competence (where you learn how to do it) 4. Unconscious Competence (you can do it without thinking). The challenge then is to start the cycle of growth all over again, putting ourselves in the place of having to be constantly stretched and evolving. How many businesses have failed because they have refused to evolve and adapt to changing times? We don’t like to give up our comfort zones.
Positioning is important before jumping and needs an application of power and determination to make the leap. You can have fear yet know Peace in the midst of it. Prayer paves and prepares the way and His inner peace assures us that we are right in the centre of God’s will, even when facing a precipice.
What is keeping me from jumping? What am I being asked to release hold of before I can make the jump? Holding onto the past keeps us stuck. Am I holding onto past hurts, fears, failures which encumber my moving on?
A ‘letting go’ of who we are to become. A work of transformation, where we acknowledge the fear yet don’t let it stop us. ‘Courage doesn’t mean we are not afraid, it is the willingness to do the thing we fear’. ‘Moments of fear become moments of faith for expressing action’. ‘Courage is fear having said its prayers’. ‘Only when our security depends on God’s unchanging love for us can we face the challenges that life is sure to bring our way’. Courage requires an inner resolution to go forward ‘in spite of’.
‘Faith, the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things unseen’
In the book of Joshua he finds himself positioned to lead thousands of people to inherit the land promised to them by God. Stepping into Moses’ shoes must have been a daunting task, in fact in Joshua 1 we find he is repeatedly told to be strong and courageous and not afraid or discouraged. So we know exactly how he was feeling. He hadn’t gone this way before (Joshua 3:4).
It is a new season for many and may require taking a leap of faith and doing things we haven’t done before. ‘I will lead them by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths’ Isaiah 42:16
God is wanting to do a NEW thing which cannot be found along the familiar and crowded pathways of life and which requires us to make Him the stability of our times despite our feelings of uncertainty and helplessness; but as we lean not on our own understanding, submit to Him and take that leap, we know that He will make our paths straight as He is there to catch us on the other side of ‘unknown’.
‘See, I am doing a NEW thing’