FROM: Banbury, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
ABOUT ME: Living the highs and lows of life in the adventurous pursuit of God Himself and of who I'm meant to be as the Bride of Christ.
(View complete profile)
Thursday, May 29, 2008,6:54 p.m.
RISK TAKING AND ROLLER COASTERS
I have decided that taking the risk of doing something that seems risky that the Lord is telling you to do is not really taking a risk at all. (What might be at risk is my teaching job is I ever construct a sentence like that again!)
I am not a risk-taker, particularly. My dad might tell you different. Actually, I love that my dad thinks I am brave. But I don't think, in fact, that I am.
For example, I don't like roller coasters. At all. AT ALL. I have been on a roller coaster once in my life (the wooden one at Playland) and I'm pretty sure that the fellow sitting beside me still has marks on his arm where I grabbed him because holding on to the bar in front of me did not feel secure enough. (Though why I thought he wouldn't also fly out if I was flying out, I'm not sure. It's not like he was bolted to the coaster car.) Roller coasters are out for me.
As are water rides (they're just roller coasters where you get wet), bungee jumping, sky diving, and anything else that might be designed to thrill me by scaring me. Taking risks is not something that gives me any kind of high. I'm closer to hives that highs when it comes to many of those kinds of things.
And yet the thought occurs to me that the Lord often asks us to take risks. In general, those risks I am OK with, and yet they have the potential to hurt so much more, since they are often risks with our hearts or our faith. But I have come to the conclusion that if the Lord tells you to do it, then He has a plan, whatever that might be. Since we already know that the plans He has for us are good (Jeremiah 29:11), then it logically follows that there is in essence no real risk in being obedient and doing what He's asked us to do.
Maybe it would be more accurate to say that we risk nothing of Him in our being obedient. I suppose we might risk acceptance in our society, social standing, financial security or gain, relationships or respect. But these things are not eternal; the Lord is eternal.
Perhaps the real conclusion is that it is like the roller coasters I so love to hate. Perhaps the 'risk' really does feel and seem like a risk, and perhaps that's part of where our leaps in faith and obedience can come in. But, just like that silly roller coaster, it is actually very safe.
It feels a little funny to call the Creator of the entire universe "safe". But I believe that to be hidden in his love and his plans is indeed a very safe risk to take.
I am not a risk-taker, particularly. My dad might tell you different. Actually, I love that my dad thinks I am brave. But I don't think, in fact, that I am.
For example, I don't like roller coasters. At all. AT ALL. I have been on a roller coaster once in my life (the wooden one at Playland) and I'm pretty sure that the fellow sitting beside me still has marks on his arm where I grabbed him because holding on to the bar in front of me did not feel secure enough. (Though why I thought he wouldn't also fly out if I was flying out, I'm not sure. It's not like he was bolted to the coaster car.) Roller coasters are out for me.
As are water rides (they're just roller coasters where you get wet), bungee jumping, sky diving, and anything else that might be designed to thrill me by scaring me. Taking risks is not something that gives me any kind of high. I'm closer to hives that highs when it comes to many of those kinds of things.
And yet the thought occurs to me that the Lord often asks us to take risks. In general, those risks I am OK with, and yet they have the potential to hurt so much more, since they are often risks with our hearts or our faith. But I have come to the conclusion that if the Lord tells you to do it, then He has a plan, whatever that might be. Since we already know that the plans He has for us are good (Jeremiah 29:11), then it logically follows that there is in essence no real risk in being obedient and doing what He's asked us to do.
Maybe it would be more accurate to say that we risk nothing of Him in our being obedient. I suppose we might risk acceptance in our society, social standing, financial security or gain, relationships or respect. But these things are not eternal; the Lord is eternal.
Perhaps the real conclusion is that it is like the roller coasters I so love to hate. Perhaps the 'risk' really does feel and seem like a risk, and perhaps that's part of where our leaps in faith and obedience can come in. But, just like that silly roller coaster, it is actually very safe.
It feels a little funny to call the Creator of the entire universe "safe". But I believe that to be hidden in his love and his plans is indeed a very safe risk to take.
'"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'
(Jeremiah 29:11)
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
(2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
'"Because he loves me," says the Lord, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him and show
him my salvation."
(Psalm 91:14-16)
