looking out for others doesn't demand perfection, it asks us to care

​Some mornings God all but snags the pen out of my hand and says, I need you to reflect and write about THIS. I need you to hear THIS. I need you to share THIS.

Yesterday, I read the words in the image below in Seth Godin's daily blog. Then, this morning, I open up my Bob Goff devotional and I read this:

I'd rather have a couple of ideas fail than have a faith that won't try.

Many of you know I've spent the summer running a virtual race across Tennessee and back. Every day, I run. Then I log the miles that I run here in Virginia in a database that plots my location on a digital map of Tennessee.

When the founders of this virtual race came up with the idea, they suspected maybe a couple of hundred people would sign up. They ended up with over 19,000 people from all over the world.

All summer long I've followed social media groups and news feeds of people who have been running this race. One common theme has emerged among literally thousands of these runners. That theme is: I never thought it was possible to run the kind of miles I'm running. I never thought I was capable of this....

As a runner who has discovered the domino effect of realizing you're capable of more than you once thought, it's no understatement to say this race has permanently altered the direction of lives all around the world. People will go on to live much bolder and more fulfilled than they ever would have without this race.

All because a few people had an idea and were willing to put it out there.

The folks who put it out there are directors of real-life and in person races. I wonder now, looking back, what would have happened when their races got cancelled because of COVID, if they'd just decided there are no other options. Or, if they'd have said, this whole virtual idea will never fly - running races can only happen in person - that's the PERFECT option - let's just ride out the COVID storm until we can meet and run together again in person.

This morning, I'm wondering how many people out there aren't tackling the best available option in life because it doesn't feel or look or sound like the perfect one? How many people are holding tight to an idea or a change in life because the path isn't stamped with a guarantee of happily ever after? And, and there is this - how many people out there are missing out on the chance to discover THEIR happily ever after because WE'RE holding on to the ideas or the direction in life that might help them get there?

But that's not what these virtual race directors did. They went with the best available option, without fear of how imperfect that option might be. And for many people, guess what - it's turned into the perfect option.

I've learned a couple of things about my faith the last several years. One is this - whatever my picture of the perfect outcome of some idea or some attempt or some change in my life is - God always finds a way to show me I was underestimating the potential of it all. His outcomes are always better than the ones I imagined. You become less prone to waiting around for perfect when you realize you don't have any idea what perfect even is.

And there is this as well. So many of the ideas or the changes we contemplate in life - we think about them in terms of how will this impact me? What will this outcome add to my life? And I don't think there's anything unreasonable about that.

But maybe we are a little more motivated, inspired, and even maybe - there's a sense of obligation to try - to attempt - when we begin to understand that those who benefit the most from our ideas - even the ideas that don't turn out perfect - are the people around us.

When we begin to think of things through the potential impact on others, we don't have to be concerned with perfect, we simply have to care.

This team that put together this virtual race across Tennessee - they simply had an idea that would give a couple of hundred people a chance to run after all the races they'd been training for got cancelled.

The outcome? Several thousand people now know they've been sitting around in life waiting for the perfect day to start running. Several thousand people are now far less likely to ever wait around for perfect again.

Don't you wait on it either...