Return of Zeal

This weekend during my recharge, I learned another lesson about my inner critic.

The critic tried to tell me that any attempt to positively reframe a difficult situation is just toxic positivity — that the "right" thing to do is simply be honest about my mood and ride it out. There's truth in that. But once I identified it as a distortion, my mind began to work differently.

I thought back to who I was as a younger person. When a challenge arose, my spirit was eager — ready to master it, conquer it. You could call that zeal without knowledge. But now, in middle age, the knowledge has grown while the zeal has quietly dimmed. And here's what I've realized: it doesn't have to be that way.

In the Bible, Caleb — in his eighties — asks Joshua to let him take the mountain, declaring he is just as strong now as he was in his youth. That image led me to a term I hadn't encountered before: consecrated audacity.

Consecrated audacity is the intersection of two things our culture tends to separate — holy surrender and bold action. We assume devotion looks like quiet submission, and audacity looks like ego-driven risk. But the biblical narrative keeps producing people where those two things are fused. Caleb wasn't reckless. He was rooted — and still ready to move.

Learning this has given me the fuel I needed to renew my spirit.

The story I get to tell doesn't have to be one of diminishing fire. It can be one where I actually look forward to the challenges of the week — not from hype or artificial enthusiasm, but from something deeper: the experience I've earned and the competencies I've built.

So as I step into another week, my goal is simple — approach every task with zeal, and be genuinely thankful for how far I've come.

Where in your life have you confused quiet resignation with holy surrender — and what would it look like to bring bold action back into that space?