Friday, February 18, 2011

Taking Risks

I am grateful to spirit's infinite wisdom for guiding me, repeatedly, off the path of least resistance.  I am not by nature a risk-taker.  It seems that I would be perfectly happy settling in to what I know and what I do, and enjoying my peaceful and relatively stress-free life.  That would all be fine and good, if not for the small voice within me that keeps pushing me out of my comfort zone.  Darn that voice!

The voice within has a habit of insisting on change, and growth, and pushing me forward when I really just want to coast for a bit.  I can ignore the voice for awhile, but while the voice is small, it is also very insistent.  For only so long can I disregard the urgings of that voice, which is the best and highest within me, the voice of God's expression.  After a time thoughts of "I can't," "I'm not ready," and "I don't know how" seem to give way, despite my repeated protests, to a new direction.

I've learned by now that I wouldn't actually be happier just settling in and maintaining the status quo.  The biggest gifts in my life have come when I've felt most uncertain that I had the ability to actually live up to what my heart was so strongly prompting me to jump into.  There have been wonderful dreams that seemed out of reach, but then some as-yet-untapped well of faith kept the dream alive while my personality caught up with what my spirit knew was right for me.

Follow your heart seems like trite advice, but there is profound wisdom in it.  From our hearts God speaks.  Oftentimes our hearts lead us into uncharted and seemingly-dangerous territory.  And our minds, always on guard to keep us safe, try to talk us out of going there.  But divine wisdom always knows which risks are worth taking.

I know the voice of my spirit's urging because it is, like all truth, steadfast.  It speaks over and over again until I"m ready to listen.  For as many times as I discount its gentle guidance in an attempt to stay secure in what I think I know, divine wisdom answers with another knock on my heart's door, reminding me of who I really am.

May you hear the gentle urgings of your spirit to risk all you thought you were, and may this tool be a blessing.

 

2 comments:

  1. Thank you, my friend, for this reminder. And thank you for being a way-shower as well!

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  2. Yes, follow those nudges and go for the changes and what you want, even though it may not look as certain and familiar as what you have now. A really nice book on this topic is "Courage - The Joy of Living Dangerously" by Osho, which gives you a lot of courage to go for the new and unknown in order to really get where you want to go.

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