Courage and Awkward Moments

Post by
Michelle Dowell, Co-Contributor

Many people like to talk about how a moment or a time feels or is awkward. This means that there was some discomfort in a situation, and it's often caused by an out-of-the-ordinary occurrence.

One example is when two people run into each other who might not like each other. They say hi or ignore each other. That is considered an awkward moment by many people.

Some people avoid awkward moments all the time, if they can help it.

It's good to aim to help awkward moments be as few as possible because we should aim to enjoy spending time with people we decide to be around, but it's also important to realize that wisdom might mean at times having courage to enter into a potentially awkward moment. For the moment it will feel awkward, but it's likely to have a potential long term good benefit to it. For example, if a friendship you value is struggling and you don't know why or you do and it's worth saving, talking to that friend about it might feel or seem very awkward, but it may well be worth it. But it requires courage.

Sometimes the Bible says we should act when we know we'll feel at least a little awkward in the situation. Like Moses who was aware that he wasn't a good speaker but was being asked to speak anyway.

We can't wait for things to look or feel perfect. If we always wait for things to be perfect, we'll never act or do anything. The world isn't perfect. Learning or growing doesn't require only working hard. It also requires allowing for it to feel new and different or challenging and therefore uncomfortable in some sense at times. It also requires the chance for mistakes, to learn from them.