Listen: Chris Witts presents Morning Devotions.
By Chris WittsWednesday 12 Jan 2022Morning Devotions with Chris WittsDevotionsReading Time: 4 minutes
In Part 1, I was talking about risk taking. How often are we prepared to really take risks. We frighten about things are going to go really badly for us. Yet, if we risk nothing, nothing really happens, nothing can change or grow. We can learn to really live if we’re prepared to take risks.
- Read Risking All – Part 1
I came across this overseas news story. It’s about a news reporter in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War. Just a few yards in front of him, he saw a little girl wounded by sniper fire. A man ran out into the street and picked the little girl up risking his own life in the process. Then he begged the reporter to help him rush the girl to the hospital.
As they rushed through the streets the man implored the reporter, Hurry hurry, my little girl is still alive. Sadly, she did not make it. Winding up at the hospital the man said, Now comes the hard part. I have to find the girl’s father and tell him that she’s gone. The reporter was dumbfounded, What do you mean? I thought she was your daughter! The man’s reply was simple. Aren’t they all our children?
History is strewn with people who took risks and in so doing they changed the course of history. It is something we don’t like doing very much, but only those who take them do great things. Most of us limit our risk-taking to trying a new restaurant or taking a different way home from work. We love to be comfortable and we like things to generally stay the same.
God asks his people to be willing to risk
Fear of change is very real and predominant in our decision-making, but when we read through the Bible we see people who took great risks and saw great rewards. God asks his people to risk thinking as big as he does and the results are life-changing. Consider Noah, who built an ark when it had never rained in the history of the world.
People thought he was crazy, but here’s old Noah with his three boys cutting down that gopher wood and nailing the planks into place. Not only that, but he had to wait 120 years for the rains to finally come. In the end, he was saved and his family along with him, but it wasn’t easy waiting for the first drops to fall from the heavens.
What would you do if God asked you risk your comfortable life and follow him? Would you consider it too risky?
Consider Abraham, who was called to leave Ur of the Chaldees. Taking his wife with him, he set out for regions unknown because God had promised to show him a better land. When God called, he left it all behind. He said goodbye to safety and security, setting out across the trackless desert in search of a city which has foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God. (Hebrews 11:10)
Consider Moses, who led the nation of Israel to the shores of the Red Sea, then across the Red Sea, then into the Sinai Desert. He was 80-years-old at the time! At an age when most men are reading the sports page, Moses is up on the mountain having a discussion with God.
What would you do if God asked you risk your comfortable life and follow him? Would you consider it too risky?
Who will volunteer?
Charles Blondin was a tightrope artist who was famous for crossing the 335-m span of Niagara Falls—50 m above the water—many times throughout his career. He crossed it blindfolded; he crossed it on stilts; he crossed it with a chair and sat down in the middle of the crossing and he even crossed with someone on his back.
One day he crossed the great falls with a wheelbarrow and made it without any troubles. When he got to the other side he asked the crowd, “Who believes I could cross the rope with someone inside the wheelbarrow?” and the crowd cheered and shouted, “We believe!” Then Charles asked, “Who will volunteer?” The crowd suddenly went silent.
Many Christians say they believe God could do anything, but go silent when he asks them to do it. Risking everything on him isn’t really a risk at all. It’s not a gamble and you’re not playing with your life. God will always be good and his promises are true and 100% reliable.
The story of Jesus is the story of a man who risked everything out of love for us, emptied himself and came down from the safety and security of heaven and became a man for us, risking hurt and rejection for us, even unto a cross. For he knows that this is what it means to love.