There are those moments in life
when facing a challenge and a decision must be made – to stay put
or to charge ahead. Thinking of such a situation, the crossing of the Red Sea
story comes to mind. Imagine you are one of the Israelite who just escaped
slavery in Egypt and fled to the desert. You run uninterruptedly through the
sand dunes until you come across the Red Sea. You look back and you see the
Egyptian army getting closer. They want to capture you and take you back to
where you were – a slave. You look ahead and all you can see is water spreading
from your feet to the horizon.
You have a very short time to
make a decision. A voice in you says, “Step into the water, something will work
out.” You can’t imagine how it can happen. You are afraid of drowning and you
also don’t want to be a slave for the rest of your life. What would you do?
The crossing of the Red Sea is a
great symbolic story of a situation many encounter several times in a lifetime:
this moment when it’s time to move on in life, but the unknown of the next step
is terrifying. Maybe your current situation is bearable - but you want more. Or
maybe you can no longer stay where you are in life - you need a change, you
have to do something different. In any case, stepping into the unknown, with no
guaranties of success, is terrifying.
Taking a leap of faith requires
courage. Courage doesn’t mean acting with no fear, but rather acting in spite of
that fear. Courage means making a decision to cross the deep water of the
unknown and charge ahead no matter what, because staying put is not an option
anymore.
Can you remember a time in your
life when you made a decision to go ahead despite the fear of the unknown? How
did it work out for you?
This post is dedicated to my courageous sister Sapir.
