From author and pastor Gordon MacDonald ~
"...I've become newly convinced that the refining of self is a key to a long and vital life. This is what it means to be on the growing edge. Not just to acquire more things, or do more things, or know more things, but to be a genuinely noble person, to be a better companion and friend, to serve with greater humlity and effectiveness, to love God more fully."
And, from Howard Thurman ~
"look well to the growing edge. All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new leaves, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge! It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds clash and dreams whiten into ash. The birth of the child - life's most dramatic answer to death - this is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge."
To live on a "growing edge" is not to collect more information. It's to live in such a way that our souls are stretched and we live with deeper resolve and resilience. As Thurman says, "It is...the one more thing to try when all else has failed.." I don't live on the "growing edge" when I choose to give up or if I choose to play it safe. If I am to grow, I need to be on that edge, living on the edge of my soul, moving foward even when I don't feel like it.
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