Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.

Our blue-eyed grandson Jacob—I call him 'Yacoob'—still isn't quite ready to leave the security of his mother's arms. Different arms, unfamiliar faces, strange smells gets his chin quivering faster than you can bounce him on your knee. He's not quite ready.

I know this will seem odd to my friends, but there are moments in a new group, crowded into a hotel ballroom, I look around for Lily. It's not unlike my first day in elementary school, September 1948, in Tisdale, Saskatchewan.

Years later standing on a platform, knowing that in a moment all eyes will turn, ears will listen, and what happens is up to me, I wonder, "Am I able?" That question still haunts my thinking. It's fleeting, but perceptible.

Oh, the comfort of my current zone. Comfort is contagious. Staying here, not venturing out, calms anxiety. But beware. Such comfort is not chicken soup to the soul, it's hemlock to the spirit. Too often we hear, "I really don't like what I'm doing, but in ten years look at the security I'll have." Indecision—better called fear—becomes the rationalization of staying stuck. Indecision doesn't become contagious with age; I've seen it in the young, too.

Among the many things we do as leaders, we must work to prevent our organization or business from being comfortable in letting the tomorrows be as today.

Prayer—
Loving Father, Rising Son of all Tomorrows, even though I'm confronted by fear of the unknown, help me push back the curtain and leave the Ur of my comforts, seeking out your promise. Amen.