While I was walking through the woods last week I noticed this tree; it was beginning to bloom in the middle of January.  Its chances for survival are not good, but I guess it saw a chance to bloom and grow and decided to go out on a limb and take a chance.  As I stood and looked at this strange sight, I began to be envious of these blooms.  I wish I was more like them.  I wish I was willing to take more chances.  I wish I was more courageous and daring when it comes to going after what I want in life.

                It takes guts to leave the ruts.  It takes courage to leave our comfort zones and attempt new things.  We fear failure so much we will do anything or settle for anything as long as we do not have to change what we have been doing.  We will orphan our dreams and starve our ambitions as long as we are allowed to settle for the comfortable.  I wonder how many other trees in the woods that day wished they had gone out on a limb and taken the chance to bloom.

                We have allowed the enemy to use our fear of failure, our fear of the unknown or our fear of peer pressure to enslave us.  We are so afraid of what other people will think or say that we are contented to be shackled to our ruts.  Our enemy says, don’t follow your dreams, play it safe, don’t start a business, you can’t go back to school, don’t volunteer, don’t rock the boat; don’t change what you have been doing, isn’t this rut comfortable?  Let me ask you; is your rut really all that comfortable?  Don’t you sometimes wish you had the courage to change directions in life?  The great news is you can.  We were created for great things; nobody in this world is like you; you have abilities and talents like no other person has ever had.

                The real question is; are we going to reach for our potential or just settle for the ruts?  Are we going to follow our dreams or just follow the crowd?  The other trees of the forest might have said, Are you not afraid you will have to start over again if the frost comes?  Don’t you want to be like the rest of us and be content with just hanging out here?  But, I am here to encourage you to take a chance and live your dreams.  Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is?

Something to think about:

• Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning.

• A great deal of talent is lost in this world for lack of a little courage.

• Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

• Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

• Have courage to let go of the things not worth sticking to.

• Many of our fears are tissue-paper thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them.

• The adventurous life is not one exempt from fear, but on the contrary one that is lived in full knowledge of fears of all kinds, one in which we go forward in spite of our fears.

Don’t be afraid, you can do it
Rickey Moore