Posted on May 10, 2013

How to Overcome The Feeling of Uncertainty in Your Mission

The original version of this was posted on Leadership Couples, written by my wife Lori. This speaks to the differentiating value of Adventure, which means a wild and exciting undertaking; or risky activities. If you are ever feeling uncertain or ill equipped to handle your mission – from leading a youth group to leading your family – it might help to view it as an adventure. The opportunity to lead a meaningful life is worth the risk.

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“This is an adventure: setting out to do something that doesn’t make sense, something for which you are not completely equipped, something that takes you into a place fraught with danger or uncertainty.”
~ Maile Smucker

Robert and I recently participated in an awesome conference – a Youth Ministers Leadership Conference. We were privileged to meet and present to a group of dedicated volunteers on an adventure with their church’s youth. Many were husbands and wives, leading together.

Did they all have everything they needed to meet the challenge of pouring themselves into their youth group? Not usually. Does what they do make sense all the time? Unlikely. Is there uncertainty in any of their hearts? I’m sure.

I believe they could define their commission to minister to the youth as an adventure…

What’s your adventure?

Are you leading in a volunteer position, or as couple in business together? Is it feeling like it doesn’t make sense, or you’re not equipped or there’s too much danger and uncertainty?

Welcome to the adventure!

You might be in the planning stage of your adventure. There may be doubts and uncertainty racing through your midnight thoughts. Is your adventure complete, and you’re now contemplating how this time has changed who you are?

Whether at adventure’s beginning, middle or end – I want to recommend the story of Maile & Shawn Smucker in “How to Use a Runaway Truck Ramp“.

This couple with their four kids, spent four months and 10,000 miles in an RV – down the east coast from Pennsylvania to Florida, across the continent to California, and back around through Indiana all the way home again to Pennsylvania. But it was more than a road trip.

It was an adventure.

Before leaving, they’d run the gamut from losing a business, moving into their parents’ basement, burdened with paying debt, selling everything, and starting a new career (with their four kids, all under eight years old). Then they did something on which many ponder, but few taken action:

“We decided to stay true to the passions God put in our hearts, no matter where that led us.”

An adventure can begin by responding to God’s call.

This book isn’t just about travelling and sightseeing. It’s filled with stories of how God made Himself known – including needing to use a runaway truck ramp. There are contemplations on staying in the moment, the cost and value of routines, the questioning of God’s hand in life, to seeing that what He provides is greatest.

“At one point, I questioned God’s ability to give good gifts. I don’t question it any longer, I don’t ask why he took everything away because I now know that it wasn’t everything, only a small pile of brick and metal that wasn’t worth the price of my life.

And He gave me an adventure instead. Because the best gift giver doesn’t give you a photo of a waterfall. No, He takes you to the foot of that waterfall, lets its billowy mists dampen your hair, the thunder of its lusty descent vibrate in your chest, and the coolness of its waters quench your thirst.”

~ Maile Smucker

Maile and Shawn Smucker are real people – they don’t hide their feelings, but rather share their fragile humanity and mortal thoughts. There are no heroes in this book – only a real husband/father, and wife/mother – living and growing in their adventure.

Just like you and me.