5 Reasons to Take a Risk

I received a striking birthday invitation the other day from a friend who's about to celebrate her fifty-first birthday.
She said that she expects her future will be amazing and even dangerous and the theme of her new life is "Fearlessness."
My friend has recently gone through some horrendous life-changes and to make such a fearless statement says a lot about her character development.
It's funny but I've been thinking along those same lines. It's possible that the Holy Spirit is preparing many of us for uncertain and challenging times ahead.
My decision to face the new year with lion-like courage and to take risks does not stem from any crisis.
It's a message without an audible voice, imprinted on my heart by God.

Here are 5 reasons to stop being so comfortable and take a risk:
1. Taking steps of faith is like an adventure-quest novel. The journey presents challenges, even danger, but it's these very difficulties that make the story interesting, that force the main character (you) to transform into something better.

2. Remember Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit? Would you have found his story interesting or his character fascinating if he'd refused to accompany Gandalf and the Dwarves on their quest to the Lonely Mountain? Would The Hobbit be memorable if Bilbo had remained safely in his hobbit hole? Are you memorable?

3. Safe is boring. Boring. Do you ever want to listen to a boring person?
Safe people risk nothing and gain nothing.

4. People who gain something in life, (could this be you?) whether it be celebrity, an academic or athletic prize, a business success, a special honor, a leadership position, or an important job, have taken a risk.

5. It would be a shame to gain heaven and the presence of Jesus Christ and then look back over my (or your) short seventy or so years on earth with regret that I'd never ventured a toe beyond the boundary between "safe" and "maybe not safe, but, Wow!"

It's really a faith-issue, don't you think? How much do you really believe that "safe" is not what Jesus calls us to be?

I'm going to take risks this year. Not silly risks, or foolhardy risks. I'm going to respond to those little holy nudges from Jesus.


"By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." (Heb. 11:8)