Bravely Taking Your Next Step

Imagine that you are on a trek to your new life. The old and familiar life is rapidly flowing into the background, but the steps forward are fraught with danger and uncertainty. You know. It’s the great gulf of the unknown.

How do you leave the familiar and move into the unknown?

It’s fearfully difficult if you are a creature of hesitancy and caution, but if you are that intrepid explorer that readily launches into the deep or across the great unknown, then every step presents challenge and excitement.

Between the extremes of cautious and explorer personality rests the great mass of the population. It’s almost like many are stuck among lemmings being shuffled to destinations by the hard press of other lives surrounding us. The collective is simply moving with no real thought of the future.

Something inside me rejects the flow, and I want to push in a different direction, only, which direction do I go? What’s calling me? What’s challenging me? What anchors me to my present place? There are no coaches or mentors speaking into my life. Prayer is not providing the answers I am seeking. I’m not content. I’ve not reached a point of frustration where, like a boiling teapot, I’ll explode if I do not find a release, but I can say that the deep is calling, and it’s time to reach out and take that first step.

I realize this has been “me” since my early days. To say I’m not contented with the status quo is appropriate. I’ve often been ready to leave the comfort of ease, prestige, and recognition and go somewhere I’m not known or favored. Some are content with the longevity of a position, but I’m most happy when there is a challenge directly ahead of me that is not in the normal pace or path of life.

I am sure I would not fit into that “Brave New World” that Aldous Huxley penned in 1931.
Conforming to the masses is a scary thought.

Here’s my thought today.

Everything requires a “first step.” Whether accepting the challenge, exploring it in your mind, and then making plans to accomplish your future, or stepping into that new opportunity, preparation needs to be done so that the new is bravely and adequately faced.

If you are unsure of your direction, how do you know what preparation looks like?

A favorite science fiction book of my younger years (published my birth year) comes to mind. [Tunnel In The Sky] A training exercise for students requires them to be sent to a new planet to prove their ability to adapt. They had no idea what to take. Would it be cold? Hot? Rations? Equipment? Once they made their choice, they were stuck with only what they could carry and had to make the best of it.

Through the years, I’ve re-invented myself to meet the needs of a challenging and changing landscape of technology and career. I began when Keypunch cards were popular! I know I’m not afraid of change, only, and maybe it’s an age thing, it seems like what my change needs to be is not readily apparent. Safety and security beckon, but the unknown beckons louder.

Oh, how it beckons!

Until that time of revelation, I will keep pressing forward in the life I know. Surely, something concrete will reveal itself so I can make plans, and that siren call of the future will sound certain and clear to me. Let’s go!

David? Speak to me.

Direct my steps by Your word, And let no iniquity have dominion over me.
Psalms 119:133 NKJV