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The Cost of Certainty
Weekly Edition #60: March 18th, 2026
Verse I Like:
“He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.”
Weekly Dose
Trying to eliminate all uncertainty often costs more time, energy, and resources than simply acting and dealing with the uncertainty itself.
Imagine I told you that you could flip a coin.
Heads earns you $5.
Tails costs you $5.
It would not make much sense to spend $100 researching the physics of coin flips, studying the metallurgy of the coin, or investigating the person flipping it.
The effort spent trying to eliminate uncertainty would far exceed the risk you were trying to avoid.
Sometimes the rational move is simply to flip the coin.
A simplified example, but the idea holds. Many of our decisions in life carry uncertainty. Trying to remove every unknown before acting can become its own kind of paralysis.
It is like the donkey that dies of starvation between two equidistant bales of hay.
Uncertainty is less of an obstacle and more of an environment. This environment allows for faith.
Quotes I Like:
“The world will reward you in proportion to your courage, not your intellect.”
“Action cures fear.”
“Far better is it to dare mighty things than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much.”
Mane Message
One of Israel’s leaders during the time of the Judges was Gideon.
Israel had fallen into oppression, and Gideon was called to deliver the nation. An angel tells him that he will lead Israel against the Midianites and restore Israel.
Gideon struggles to believe it.
He asks for signs multiple times.
First, he lays out a fleece of wool and asks God to make the fleece wet with dew while the ground remains dry.
The next morning it happens. But Gideon asks again, this time the opposite.
Let the fleece be dry and the ground wet.
Again, it happens.
Before the fleece, he asked for a sign with fire on a rock. After the fleece, God still sends him a dream as a sign.
Gideon wanted immense reassurance that what he had been told would actually come to pass.
The instinct is understandable, but eventually Gideon has to move forward in faith, not with perfect certainty.
Faith does not mean acting without evidence, but it certainly is not waiting until every possible doubt has been resolved.
The regret and terror of missing a once in lifetime opportunity should be weighed over the short-term discomfort from uncertainty.
Weekly Ponder
Are we actively seeking wisdom or looking for excuses not to act?
Shouldn’t the fear of missed opportunities outweigh the fear of uncertainty?
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Onward and Upward!
