I listened to a Christian speaker yesterday. She is regarded a ‘mover and shaker’ in Christian circles. She spoke about how, over a period of time, she was challenged by the way her life was going. Even though it seemed that she was always busy, and her time consisted of many Christian, Godly, worth-while activities. She’s also been a good wife and mother, someone who paid a great deal of attention to the bible and prayer, and she spent time balancing her health and wellbeing and caring for her family. A real Proverbs 31 lady, except I don’t think she sold real estate — but she was “up there!’
Outside her home she regularly did things like raising money for the poor, helping the homeless, reaching out into the community, witnessing to people and so forth. Plus she ran every single day, and ate all the right things. She seemed to be the kind of person I am allergic to, mainly because she cheerfully did everything I think I can’t! Eventually this nice lady realised the things she was doing were good, right and profitable, but it wasn’t enough. She felt empty. She wasn’t UN-happy, but she wasn’t fulfilled in her life either. So she began to pray about it.
Then the Lord challenged her with these thoughts. “I am looking for risk takers. My people want to play it safe, and just do and say all the right things. I don’t want your life to be about ‘the appearance of doing good,’— I want all of My people to live their lives to their fullest spiritual potential. That includes taking risks and daring to believe they can do far more than the same things over and over again.”
A few years ago, there was kind of a buzz word, and it describes the way Christians today often choose to live: Risk averse! “Being risk-averse means having a strong preference for avoiding uncertainty and potential loss, even if it means sacrificing higher potential rewards. Rather than gambling on unpredictable outcomes, a risk-averse person or organisation will consistently choose a safer, more predictable option.”
When I read that description I laughed. It is so easy to look at our lives and justify why we do this and that – or why we sometimes don’t do that other thing. That’s usually because we think our personal responsibilities outweigh the risk factor … or we are a tad scared it might be a bit dodgy. Sometimes I think we spend so much time learning to be a good Christian – we end up doing nothing. Meanwhile, I’m not quite sure how that kind of mentality is helpful as we follow Jesus!
I look back at His disciples and remember that those 12 men left their way of life behind, instantly. Imagine how their wives, mothers, fathers, kids, friends, rabbits and relations felt about them waltzing off like that! And then they traveled about with the Lord all over the country-side, sleeping by the road, etc., jumping on religious theories. Now there’s some risk taking!
When I asked Google about risk – because as we all know, Google thinks IT knows everything! I realised that many people think being risk-averse is normal and a good way to live. It seems that mankind’s idea of adventure flew out of the window when we headed for the moon. The reality is that precious few people actually DID that!
But when you read the bible, the Old and New Testament, you will find a whole lot of characters who were plodding along enjoying their normal little risk-free lives … And then Almighty God crashed into their lives and interrupted their well made plans with His wishes. Now these people had two choices, comply, or suffer the consequences. Some of the dumb bunnies actually chose the consequences and ended up in all kinds of trouble. Then they had to pray like mad for the Lord to get them out. And because of all that to-ing and fro-ing, and weeping and wailing, they gained a testimony to God’s greatness.
Perhaps today, we don’t have any testimonies because we rarely face those kinds of tests … we kind of wiggle out of them? Maybe we need to revise what we think Christianity is all about. My point today is to challenge everyone – including me -anyone who is living their new life in Christ, risk free. We all do good wherever we can, but when is the last time we prayed for a dead person to come back? Your own answer to that question might surprise you. I’m kind of curious to know, how come all the risk takers died off?
My risk-averse lady is now utterly engaged in challenging laws-of-the-land-that-need-to-be-changed. She simply loves what she is doing – despite the sometimes nasty opposition. Risky living seems to be like that. It scares the daylights out of you – but you know you are alive alright. It’s time we stopped playing it safe. Bye. 🤪
