What Does Your Face Say?

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There was a time in my life when I was mentoring a lawyer friend of mine. Naturally, we found ourselves in multiple meetings throughout our mentorship where we discussed big ideas. Over time, I began to notice that when those big ideas were introduced, his initial response was to wear a clear look of anxiety or dismay on his face and then proceed to lawyer the idea to near death. 

You know what I mean by lawyer: lawyers are trained to consider and comb through everything that could go wrong and to attempt to mitigate risks as much as possible and practical. We’ve all seen the commercials for some supposed wonder drug where the voiceover spends more time warning of every possible terrible side effect than actually listing the benefits of the medicine. That, my friends, is all thanks to lawyers.

Anyway, my lawyer friend is an outstanding person with high-caliber leadership capacity, so I knew it would serve him well to bring up his tendency to immediately focus on the negative. “Are you aware that your first response to a big idea is to discuss what could go wrong?” I asked. “That though you always come around to the positive, your first instinct is contrarian?”

This time, he wore a look of surprise on his face. But as he mentally replayed our meetings, he said quickly, “You know, you’re right. I’ve been trained to see what could go wrong. I need to be retrained to see what could go right.”

I responded, “You have to retrain your first-step instinct toward what could go right. You must develop a possibility instinct. You must see the potential of a preferred future. Your first thought should be, What if? After that, perform your due diligence. Do commission feasibility studies. Do a risk analysis. Review contracts, and do all that important lawyer stuff. But start with a focus on what’s possible.”

What does your face say when you encounter possibility? 

The story is told that President Thomas Jefferson was traveling across the country  on horseback with a group of trusted companions. They came to a river that was swollen because of a recent downpour. The bridge at the crossing had been washed away, and each rider was forced to attempt to cross the river on horseback. The currents were rapid. The danger of drowning threatened each rider. There was a stranger standing by who needed to cross the river. He watched as several riders plunged into the water at great risk but made it to the other side. This stranger asked President Jefferson if he could ride double and be carried to the other side. The President immediately agreed. At double the risk, he took his horse skillfully through the raging water and safely to the opposite bank. 

As the stranger dismounted and settled back on dry ground, someone  in the  group challenged  him about why he asked the president of the United  States  to take him across the river under the circumstances. The stranger was stunned and admitted that he had no idea  that it was the president who aided him. “All I know,” he said, “is that on some of your faces was written the answer ‘no’ and on some of them was the answer ‘yes.’ His was a ‘yes face.’”

We speak so much about saving face; I also think we can change our faces from what to what-if, from worry to wonder, from “no” to “yes”. 

We must not limit God with our limited thinking. He is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph. 3:20). So, dream big! Pray big! Decide big! Plan big! And act big!

When God brings you the possibilities He has prepared for you within your Area Of Destiny, what does your face say? When you’re faced with opportunity incomprehensible to the human mind, does doubt cloud your vision, or does wonder ignite your soul?

Countless possibilities await you in your Area Of Destiny. You can choose to call those God-made opportunities anything you want, but you have to name them possible in order to bring them to pass.