Once my 8-month-old grandson learned to crawl, his determination was incredible. Nothing was going to keep him from getting to his destination.

Each morning, just after waking up, he made a circuit around the living room’s perimeter, a veritable obstacle course. First, he inched under the coffee table, then maneuvered over a stack of pillows, crawled between the wall and an end table and finally ventured across the tiled floor on bare knees.

The obstacles slowed him but they never stopped him from moving forward.

While my grandmomma instinct was to help him when it looked too hard, his parents watched patiently, letting him struggle until he had moved through each barrier.

They didn’t move the coffee table or shove the pillows aside to make it easier. They smiled at his tenacity and if at any point he would have come against something impossible, they would have bent down to rescue.

Oh, for that trusting tenacity when there are obstacles.

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One swift kick.

The frustration of the last ten months had come to a head and with all the patience of a 3-year-old, I took it out on the side of the tub with one quick kick.

Tubs are unforgiving.

My ankle began to swell with shades of blue and purple and soon I couldn’t bear any weight on that foot. For the next two days, I hopped and hobbled around, painfully aware that my heart needed fixing more than my ankle.

I’d been wandering a wilderness of isolation and waiting after we moved from a town I loved to a new large city. I didn’t doubt God had led us to move, but the months looking for a new church, new house, new homeschool group, new swim coach, new everything had taken their toll.

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What is being brave for God, really?

Is it doing big things in big places? Is it conjuring up some deep-down self-empowerment so that we can step out boldly and brashly?

For the past few years I’ve been listening to all the voices that shout “to achieve your dreams for God you need to build your platform. Be seen. Be heard. Be an influencer.”

Certainly, God calls some of his followers to big platforms which require big bravery. But you know what? They started with being brave in the ordinary.

Billy Graham first preached at small churches and on city street corners before ever reaching millions through radio and crusades.

Elisabeth Elliot first ministered in the jungles of Ecuador before speaking and writing nationally.

Mother Teresa left her order to live among the poorest of India long before meeting queens and presidents.

God may call some of us to do big things in big places. But he calls all of us to do brave things in the ordinary places.

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