How to Navigate When You Find Yourself Off The Map
“The challenge is that many of us are not finding falling off the map all that exciting.
We become fearful when we don’t know the rules to navigating the unknown.”
Anyone who experienced the powerful and relevant conversations that took place at A Seat at the Table, hosted by Gather Women along with other national leaders, could feel the tension of both the opportunities and challenges of leading during a pandemic. In a world so programmed to respond in fear to unwanted change, the proclamation to make a case for championing truth, challenging inequity and daring to change our world, rather than run from it, rang loud and clear.
We learned together that the waters in which we navigate our lives were unsettled long before the pandemic swelled like a tidal wave into our outwardly intact worlds. The internal pressure and rumblings of unrest and misalignment caused by living lives out of control and out of focus were bound to erupt in some sort of crisis moment. The pandemic just accelerated the forward movement of the eruption.
On my nightstand is one of the most relevant books on leading in uncharted waters I have read in a long time, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory, by Tod Bolsinger. There is no doubt that where we are going as individuals, as leaders, as a church and as a nation is not showing up on anyone’s GPS, as it is undiscovered terrain. We have been completely taken off-road. The author says: “Mostly we will learn that to thrive off the map in an excited and rapidly changing world means learning to let go, learn as we go and keep going no matter what.”
The challenge is that many of us are not finding falling off the map all that exciting.
We become fearful when we don’t know the rules to navigating the unknown.
Maybe we need to unpack Bolsinger’s three principles for thriving off the map.
There has rarely been a time in history that God didn’t ask those who followed him to pick up and move. Abraham literally picked up his entire life to move from Ur to Canaan. The Israelites had to walk through a desert to get from Egypt to the Promised Land.
It is difficult to travel lightly when you are carrying the baggage
from the past with you.
You need to learn to let go not only of all that came before, but also of old mindsets, and old belief systems that worked in a world that was static and comfortable, but won’t serve you in a world characterized by hyperbolic change and uncertainty.
Learn as you go
Do you need a community of faith to journey with that will call up your hope and pray you through?
Do you need a strategy for your family to set new routines that accommodate your new reality?
Do you need a financial strategy to see you through the long term consequences of pandemic life?
Do you need to develop a growth mindset and ask: “What am I learning” vs “What am I losing?”
Do you need to dig deeper into the lives of God’s change-makers in Scripture and compare the similar cultures and circumstances they were challenged to bravely obey God in – to the one you are in right now?
Do you need to get to know God in new and surprising ways? Do you need to learn in a deeper way how He is faithful and draws in close when times get tough.
Keep going no matter what.
The easy thing is to quit. The easy thing is to give in to the fear that characterizes a world that does not know that the battle is already won by God.
I am so grateful in these times when truth is obsolete and relative, when gender, race and class inequity are creating schisms of anger and mistrust, and when most of us want to keep the status quo rather than change anything – that Scripture gives us a model of someone who stayed the path.
Hebrews 12:1-2: As for us, we have all of these great witnesses who encircle us like clouds. So we must let go of every wound that has pierced us and the sin we so easily fall into. Then we will be able to run life’s marathon race with passion and determination, for the path has been already marked out before us. We look away from the natural realm and we fasten our gaze onto Jesus who birthed faith within us and who leads us forward into faith’s perfection. His example is this: Because his heart was focused on the joy of knowing that you would be his, he endured the agony of the cross and conquered its humiliation, and now sits exalted at the right hand of the throne of God!
Learn to let go, learn as you go and keep going no matter what. Let’s keep taking our seat at tables that encourage our individual and collective obedience to following Jesus even in and especially in an uncertain world.
I believe in you!
Cathie