The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’
Wherever we are on our journey of vocation, God invites us to take the next doable risks as we pursue meaning in our work. What next doable risk might God be inviting you toward today?
If imagination sounds like what if? Risk-taking sounds like let’s try. Our “let’s try” can take all kinds of shapes—from a conversation with a recruiter to testing a new budgeting system at work.
Consider your natural relationship with risk. Does it come easily to you or do you sort of having to work at it? How about when it comes to work and the people you work alongside?
Contrary to large, life-altering risks, the next doable risks are risks that you already have the resources—time, money, or relationships—to do in the near term. Risks that are in fact, doable. Deciding to ask someone you respect for coffee. Or trying out a new way of leading a meeting. Sending an email to someone you have a conflict with.
But what if your next doable risk doesn’t feel as concrete? What if it’s hard to know exactly what you should do? It can help to link your next doable risks to whatever work in empathy and imagination you’ve done. What came up when you moved toward other people or let yourself imagine? How might what came up speak into your sense of the next doable risk?
If a risk is scary to you, remember that we are a people grafted into the Resurrection. Because God has the final say over death, we have the assurance that failure will never have the final word or define us.
If you think you’re not a natural risk-taker, reconsider what it means to take a risk. If you have ever truly practiced empathy, you have already taken a risk. If you have ever looked someone in the face and let their joy spark your joy or their sorrow bring you to your knees, you have already risked so much. You have risked the kind of closeness that yields unpredictable, uncontrollable, human outcomes. And if you’ve ever let yourself dream, if you’ve ever let yourself linger on the question “what if?”—then you’ve already taken a risk, because you’ve let yourself hope.
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