Imagine a canyon, about 200 yards across. It is infinitely long, so you can’t go around, and incredibly deep so it is virtually impossible to go down into. The winds above are so fierce that flying over is impossible, but you have to get to the other side. You have unlimited resources at your disposal. How do you do it?
A friend proposed this question to me. The idea is you have to build a bridge. Through building this bridge and your methods of attacking the problem you can tell a lot about a person and how they problem solve. Some people send grappling hooks to connect to the other side first, others build rope bridges and still others build enormous steel structures. My solution was comical to say the least. I had unlimited resources, and yet for some reason I chose to bring an ax and attack a forest with it, chopping down my own trees. Going to the lumber store never occurred to me. My design was reminiscent of a wooden bridge with tresses underneath it, but my method was the interesting part. Every time I built out, I built down the cliff to reinforce the structure and better anchor it into the side of the cliff. You can imagine if I continued to do this for 200 yards the amount of work I would spend moving forward to achieve my goal and then going back to reinforce the foundation. But I was concerned about the foundation, it had to be secure and withstand the stress of moving forward.
What was most shocking is when my friend kept pressing me for details I got frustrated and said, “I don’t do details” at which point I was kind of done with the game. This is truly reflective of how I handle a problem. I’m a big visionary, I can see the end goal and can create grandioso schemes, but the devil is in the details and that’s when t I get bored and give up on my project.I have thought a lot about this bridge I created the past few days and how this mirrors how I approach my life goals. I decided a lot of my method for building this bridge was done out of fear. I was so concerned with the foundation, and afraid to move forward without a secure foundation that I never took any risks. I don’t think that it’s bad to want to be cautious, but if you’re like me and being overly cautious causes a lot of extra work and details that you get bored with well then you’ll never reach your goal.
I don’t know if this is something that I can change or if it is a product of who I am and how I was raised, but I am much more aware of it now and how it hinders my progress to where I believe God is taking me. But there’s the beauty of it. I actually don’t have to worry about how strong the foundation is and spend all my time reinforcing it because I have God. If this is the path he is calling me to, then he is the one who is guiding my progress and pushing me forward, always ready to catch me if I fall. I can stop being afraid of the risk and just trust that I will get to the other side and achieve my goal.
