Leap-aversery

Nine years ago last month, my husband, Mark, and I took a leap of faith. Shortly before, I’d taken the jump from a job I adored into the arms of stay-at-home parenting. And now that our firstborn was 10 months old, we took an even bigger leap to say farewell to his paycheck and the luxury of a company health-care plan for the dream of working from home and being his own boss.

We made the decision with caution. We had saved up enough to give the dream a go for six months. If we didn’t see signs of encouragement after those six months, he’d scour the job-search engines and circulate his resume again. Thankfully, when six months rolled around, he had done well enough that we took a deep breath and said we’d give it a go for another six. We’ve continued to set mini-goals and re-evaluation check-points along the way, but so far God has continued to give us the green light on the dream. And though there have been some very dramatic downs and ups, God has blessed our leap and our faith and that is how we find ourselves nine years on the other side of the chasm of the unknown.

Up until the time Mark turned in his resignation, he had been dutiful and productive in his work, but not happy. He was earning a living, but not loving the life it gave him. I knew him well enough to see that and to encourage him to give what looked like a risky venture to the outside world a go. While not everyone gets the joy of loving his or her job, I knew that if it was at all possible, I wanted Mark to spend his 9 to 5 doing something that would bring him deep satisfaction, just as my work as a writer had given me.

I often joke that my husband got the left brain and I got the right and together we make a whole brain. But in all seriousness, it hasn’t always been easy for me to understand what exactly it is about numbers and spreadsheets and studying a company’s quarterly earnings that makes him love working as a long-term investor for a living. But I have always respected the way God made him enough to see what makes him come alive and cheer him toward the godly use of those gifts.

The point of this post isn’t to pat ourselves on the back. Certainly, every provision we have received has been a gift from God’s hand, a mercy, and not a right or guarantee. God could have let those dreams fail and still been a good and faithful Father. But I bother sharing our leap-aversary at all because I think there is a goodness in taking a risk in faith and for the right reasons. My husband longed to be a part of the daily life of our family. He longed to use his gifts at that intersection of God’s glory and his deep gladness. And God blessed the dive.

Maybe God has been nudging you in some area to take a risk, to splatter some paint on a blank canvas, to speak into a void, or open yourself up to the pain of possible rejection. Have you stopped to listen? Have you stopped to dream? Risk is at the heart of the Christian life. Love risks. Faith risks. Faith can risk because faith has a faithful Father, willing to catch us even if everything falls apart.

So let me encourage you to slow down a minute. Ask the questions. “Where, God, are you calling me to take a holy risk?” And ask him to help you have the faith and the confidence in his character to sow your seeds of faith generously (2 Cor. 9:6). May I leave you with the words of one of my favorite poets, Rainier Marie Rilke:

“God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.”

Who knows? Maybe a year from now, you can write and tell me that you are celebrating your leap-aversary.