{"id":5187,"date":"2026-01-27T14:49:29","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5187"},"modified":"2026-01-27T14:49:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:49:29","slug":"habitual-courage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/27\/habitual-courage\/","title":{"rendered":"Habitual Courage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>
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Last weekend, American rock climber Alex Honnold got in a little exercise.
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In less than 90 minutes, he ascended Tawain\u2019s Taipei 101 skyscraper aided only by his bare hands \u2013 no ropes or protective equipment of any kind.
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The building, one of the world\u2019s tallest, rises 1,667 feet and has 101 floors. Honnold, wearing a short-sleeved red shirt, used the small L-shaped outcroppings on its fa\u00e7ade as footholds. From time to time, he was forced to clamber his way past large ornamental structures that protrude from the tower.
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Netflix provided a live broadcast of Honnold\u2019s feat, which allowed millions of people to watch the heart-stopping free solo climb from the comfort of their sofas. There was, of course, a ten-second delay \u2013 just in case he missed a step. After ascending the building\u2019s spire \u2013 where the winds were gusting heartily \u2013 Honnold donned a harness and rappelled down the top of Taipei 101. Then he took the elevator to the lobby.
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I want to make it perfectly clear that the next time I am in Taipei, I am able and willing to attempt Honnold\u2019s daring elevator ride to the lobby.
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\u201cAlexander the Great\u201d is the same guy who fulfilled a lifelong dream eight and a half years ago. He free-soloed the 3,000-foot face of Yosemite National Park\u2019s granite monolith El Capitan.
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Think of climbing, unaccompanied and with absolutely no room for error, a slick rock face as tall as the Empire State Building \u2013 and then add another Empire State Building on top of that, and for good measure an additional 50-story building.\u00a0
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When Honnold announced his intention to do what no one else in the world thought possible, his friends feared for his safety and his sanity.
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Indeed, there appears to be something missing in Alex Honnold\u2019s brain.\u00a0You\u2019re probably thinking, \u201cYeah, like maybe the whole thing.\u201d\u00a0
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In 2016, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans revealed that his amygdala \u2013 the so-called \u201cprimitive\u201d part of the brain that can register fear in less than a tenth of a second \u2013 barely indicated anxiety as he watched disturbing, get-me-out-of-here images.\u00a0
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Honnold admits that he feels anxious from time to time. But never for very long.\u00a0He has coached himself not to freak out.\u00a0
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On June 3, 2017, Alex set out from the base of El Capitan.\u00a0His climb was documented by cameras (some of them on drones).\u00a0The footage ultimately became Free Solo<\/em>, an Academy Award-winning documentary that creates far more anxiety in most viewers than was experienced by the guy pressing his fingers into tiny granite seams thousands of feet above the ground.\u00a0
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Honnold knew in advance that his do-or-die moment (literally) would come about two-thirds of the way up the face.\u00a0Climbers call it the Boulder Problem. That\u2019s a rather understated label \u2013 a bit like calling the loss of your entire net worth the Cash Flow Problem.\u00a0
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Even those with ropes and spikes hold their breath when they run out of footholds and handholds and have to shift their bodies about six feet to the left in order to find safety.\u00a0Honnold spent months practicing a \u201ckarate kick\u201d maneuver in which he extended his left leg as fully as possible to stick the horizontal landing.
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Yes, he made it. But more than a few people, including members of his film crew, had to turn away at the crucial moment. It was too much tension to bear.
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Honnold conquered El Capitan in a mind-blowing 3 hours and 56 minutes.\u00a0It\u2019s possible that no one will ever attempt such a climb again.\u00a0 \u00a0
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Even if you\u2019re not a rock climber, you experience drama almost every day.\u00a0It happens every time you face a difficult situation.\u00a0Do you stare it down and decide to take action, or shrink away and hide?\u00a0Either way, you\u2019re developing a habit \u2013 one that will be reinforced every time you confront the next <\/em>difficult situation.\u00a0
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It\u2019s unlikely you\u2019ll have to face the Boulder Problem today.\u00a0But you may need to confront the In-Law Problem.\u00a0Or the Self-Confidence Problem.\u00a0Or the Workplace Ethics Problem.\u00a0
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If you push your fears aside and choose to take action instead of procrastinating, you\u2019ll experience what author and pastor John Ortberg describes as a surge of joy.\u00a0You did the hard thing.\u00a0And now you can imagine doing it the next time.\u00a0\u201cBut when you wimp out by refusing to take the difficult step or saying the hard word \u2013 you die a little.\u201d
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Whatever habits we develop will be intimately connected with our life with God.
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All of us are called to develop habitual courage \u2013 choosing again and again and again to do the difficult thing, even if it\u2019s an exceedingly small difficult thing.
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Over the centuries, bad theology has generated plenty of heretics. But spiritual hesitancy has created many more. Such wavering tempts us to conclude that God probably isn\u2019t big enough or strong enough or close enough or something-enough to get us out of whatever mess we\u2019re facing.
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A few years ago, Alex Honnold co-authored a book about his climbing exploits.\u00a0It\u2019s called Alone on the Wall<\/em>.\u00a0Aloneness is what defines free soloing.
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But aloneness is the antithesis<\/em> of the experience of every follower of Jesus.
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No matter what you are facing today \u2013 whatever is calling you to be courageous \u2013 you are most certainly not alone.\u00a0

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0Last weekend, American rock climber Alex Honnold got in a little exercise.\u00a0In less than 90 minutes, he ascended Tawain\u2019s Taipei 101 skyscraper aided only by his bare hands \u2013 no ropes or protective equipment of any kind.\u00a0The building, one of the world\u2019s tallest, rises 1,667 feet and has 101 floors. Honnold, wearing… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5188,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[94,205,1067],"class_list":["post-5187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-courage","tag-fear","tag-wavering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5189,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5187\/revisions\/5189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}