Risk??

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“For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”  James 1:3-4 NLT  

I remember the first time I was asked to white water raft as a youth.  I was terrified.As we went down the rapids, it got easier and easier, until I could hear the crashing of the waves and the noise of the impending falls.  In anticipation I got fearful.  I wanted to jump out of my raft, even though at this time it was blissful and quiet. Thinking, I must get out of this raft.  The falls are here.

You know, it is so much work to swim against a river, or even to cross a river, than it is to dive headlong into it and let it take you where it’s going to take you… This memory reminded me this morning of this life lesson for me. 

When I embrace the “testing of my faith”, rather than run from it, whine about it, roll my eyes at it, wait it out, or “get through it as quickly and painlessly as possible”, I find that the testing of my faith IS my life and it is increasing my capacity to experience life, which is what James means by having my “endurance fully developed”.  

 You and I, in every single moment of our lives,   are on the shore of some great, meaningful, and worthy endeavor that can not be undertaken unless you are willing, like me and the raft, to face the danger and the fears, and surrender to the current of God’s Spirit, come what may.

When was the last time you did that?

I would think, that the last time you did that, you felt the same as I did on that river…afraid, exhilarated, out-of-control-with-no-one-to-blame-for-it-but-yourself, anticipating, focused, consumed…I bet you were fully engaged when you did it.

Where the heck did I get the message, somewhere along the way, that living the Life of Christ was supposed to be a safe, well-planned, and a  non- risky life?

I am surrounded by a growing number of people who are learning to not just talk about the glory of diving into the river, not just take steps towards the river, not just look at the rapids and say “how cool would that be?”, but they are swallowing hard and taking that crazy step into the boat that  pushes them off of the shore, and settling in to the Powerful Ride ahead, come what may. They are disappearing over the edge of the waterfalls… Will you join us?

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