Risk: Living in Quadrant 4

2 Responses to “Risk: Living in Quadrant 4”

1. Marc on April 11th, 2009 8:29 pm

   Calling and Risk go together. Because in your calling the image of God in you becomes very clear. And that pisses the Enemy off. You become a target. That’s why every bullet you’ve taken in your life, feels like it was fired directly at your heart, where your calling lives. It’s not an accident. And that’s why it can feel so heavy, so intimidating, and so risky to go back there.

   You may have seen the movie, “The Legend of Beggar Vance.” It’s the story of a man who is a gifted golfer, a natural. It is his glory to golf, and his community’s glory to watch him. Sadly, he goes off to fight in WWI and comes back so emotionally scarred, he just crawls into a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and fades away. He loses his swing, his dream, and the dreams of those who love him.

   But circumstances call him back to the game. (Is it chance?) He’s called to take up the risk of finding his swing again, the risk of being humiliated if he fails, and most importantly the risk of trusting someone else to help him find his swing. And that someone else is Baggar Vance, a mysterious figure, who comes into his life almost magically from nowhere. To me, Beggar Vance is a stand in for God, or the Holy Spirit, who wants to father us into areas of risk and greatness if we will let him–to find our authentic swing.

   One of the ways we can hear God’s call on our lives is to go back and think about our peak experiences–those times and places where we were taken out of ourselves and experienced complete enthusiasm and enjoyment in the task at hand. A peak experience, as my mentor Anna Navarro defines it, is an experience that is specific and active. It’s not something passive like watching a great movie. It’s something you do, or did, or were doing at the time. This is your SWING. Something you enjoyed doing minute by minute, regardless of the outcome. You loved the process.

   Think about experiences in your life that match this description and take a good hard look at them. Ask yourself if there is anything there that still calls out to you. What would it look like to go back and do it all over again with more intentionality, more freedom, and less fear–to stretch that experience out and out until it became your whole life? What would that require of you? What would it require of God? What kind of faith partnership would that take?

   More than a decade ago, Christopher Vogler wrote a book called “The Writer’s Journey”–which became an instant classic among screen writers in Hollywood. In it, Vogler outlines the phases of the Hero’s Journey and the formula that makes every great story work. To Vogler, every box office hit, and indeed every enduring story, is the same story, a myth retold again and again in a thousand ways. It is the story of the Hero’s Journey, and we all respond to it because it is also our story. There are many phases in the Hero’s Journey but the most crucial phase is when the Hero passes from the Ordinary World into the Special World of the Story, the adventure. To do this, the hero must answer The Call to Adventure, often with trepidation. Movie examples of this abound: Luke Skywalker leaves Tatooeen, Indiana Jones leaves the cushy University, Frodo leaves the Shire, and so on.

   Vogler says, “Scripts often fail because the stakes simply aren’t high enough”. The question is, do our lives fail simply because the stakes aren’t high enough?

   Look at the Quadrants again. And think about biblical heros. What happens to men and women in scripture when God gets a hold of them? No really, what happens to them? Abraham, Moses, David, Esther, Nehemia, Paul, Jesus? They all step into Quadrant 4 and from that moment on, their lives become dangerous, costly, and beautiful.

   The further you move up the vertical axis (dependent on God), the more God will bend your path toward Risk. Because that’s where the story gets good.

   And you can’t do this alone. In his book “A Hidden Wholeness”, Parker J. Palmer, says that living an undivided life is risky and elusive. It takes a discerning heart, a soul’s walk, and a community of support, or “circle of trust”.

   I find this exhilarating because right here in ConneXions, we have all the ingredients to start living in Quadrant 4. We have hearts awakening to God’s call, we have people learning to walk with God in discernment, and we have a community of support for that walk.

   In short, we have a place where Risk suddenly seems possible.

2. Spiritual Warfare | Connexions on June 21st, 2009 10:39 am

   [...] deeper: for related reading on this subject see, Risk:  Living in Quadrant IV–what it means to live deeply dependent on God, to take the risk of responding to His [...]

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