Hi Friends,

Today I want to talk to you about courage. Not from a place of “I’m so brave” but from a place of “let me tell you what I’ve learned….and am still learning.” And it starts with me jumping out of a plane.

Yes, I know. Why take my life in my hands you ask? I ask the same question when I look back on that experience. I was a first year medical student (Yes, I know, I should have KNOWN better). After our first block of classes, a group of us decided that we were going to go tandem skydiving. We drove out to the location, about 45 minutes outside of Durham, dutifully went through our briefing, and then after donning our gear, climbed into the skydiving plane. We were each paired with an experienced skydiver. The safety team strapped us together, checked all the connections, parachutes (yes, two parachutes), and ensured we had our safety equipment properly donned. When we got to the designated height of 14,000 feet, they opened the back of the airplane. It was time to go!

I remember when it was my time to jump. My instructor once again checked all our connections, ensuring we were securely attached to one another. Then it was time to move towards the open hatch of the plane. I remember standing at the edge of that opening, looking out. Wind blasting in my face. And then I just…stepped off the plane. No hesitation. Just “GO!”

The descent was LOUD. Wind rushing past my ears. Blowing my face in all kinds of directions. I had one of those disposable kodak cameras zipped up in my jump suit at the time (this was before Go-pros and cell phone cameras). I took a few pictures (or rather attempted to take a few pictures) on the free fall down and then felt the jerk as the parachute opened and our descent slowed. The loud noise quieted and it became quietly peaceful.

I saw my friends also with their instructors and open parachutes coming down around me. We all landed in a grassy field, covered by our parachutes. After untangling ourselves, we checked to make sure we had all our body parts, and thanked the Lord that we made it back to solid ground. Then it was time to load up into the bus and back to our cars. It was a memorable experience for sure, and one I would NEVER do again! 😂

Contrast that with an experience I had some 15 years later. This time at an elevated ropes course at the now defunct Miami Seaquarium. My 4-year-old son wanted to do the ropes course. I was like, “Sure, I’ve jumped out of a plane before…how hard could this be?”

Um…WRONG answer!

They strapped us into our harnesses for the ropes course, gave us a safety briefing, and then connected our safety tether to the safety line above the course. We climbed up onto the platform and then…stepped out onto what had to be the most wobbly rope bridge I had ever seen! My son in front of me, we gingerly and with extreme trepidation took step by step across the ropes course, from one platform to the other.

There were times when I felt frozen with fear, too far forward to go backward, too much distance in front of me to think I could make it, and too much pride to ask them to come rescue me and my son from this course that was a mere 10 feet off the ground. I had to be “brave” for my son, who was, like me, petrified. But somehow we made it across. Reader, I was SO relieved to make it to that other platform, get down on solid ground, and get the heck out of that harness!!!

​

So that brings me back to courage, and what I’ve learned about it. I’ve heard it said that courage is “action despite fear.” In other words…doing the thing in front of you, even if you’re afraid. I want to contrast that for a second with confidence, because we often can conflate or confuse the two. You see, while they are similar, they are not the same.

Walking off the back of that plane to go skydiving, I had courage AND confidence. Courage to walk off the back of a perfectly good plane at 14,000 feet, and confidence that the instructor strapped to my back, the harnesses designed to keep us together, the parachute and the backup parachute would all work the way they were supposed to. I had confidence because I understood enough of the physics, and the mechanics, to rationalize how it was all going to work out.

The ropes course on the other hand?....ZERO confidence. Yet, I still demonstrated courage. Somehow. I was on a swaying rope bridge, with a harness strapped to my legs and torso, but a security tether that felt loose and unstable. I couldn’t feel the support that was actually there. I couldn't rationalize despite the objective fact that a fall from 10 feet is MUCH safer than 14,000 feet, that my life wasn’t going to end on that ropes course. But, I made it across the course.

So, the lesson I’m learning in all of this. Sometimes your next stage of development or your preparation stage will require you to do something, to embody something, to make a decision or choice that you may not be able to fully rationalize or explain. But there is something unmistakable about the direction you are receiving. You may not be able to explain why you know, but you know: this is the action you are being called to take.

When this happens, you may not have the confidence you wish you had in that moment, BUT if you have gone through the transformation stage, you’ve developed the necessary capabilities, and the conditions are right for the action, then courage is the last ingredient you need to “take flight”.

PRE-FLIGHT CHECKLIST

☐ Capabilities​
☐ Conditions​
☐ Courage

As I reflect on this more, I’m developing a “Pre-Flight Checklist” - something that we can each use when we’re preparing to launch. When the idea came to me, I thought confidence was on the list, but now I realize...confidence isn’t necessary to take flight, but courage is. The pre-flight checklist: Capabilities, Conditions, and Courage.

For those of us who believe that the Ultimate Architect has a unique plan for us, one that may require “leaps” of faith, I point us to Joshua 1:9:

I’ll share more reflections as they come to me, but for now, just sit with this question.

​

Until next time 🦋