Risk

I am currently reading "Healing is a Choice" by Stephen Arterburn. He says some very wise things that apply directly to my life at this moment. I especially like the parts I have underlined and specifically the bolded part - it relates directly to my first post on this blog. I am so tired of everyone living self-protecting lives, myself included. How blah we are. How sick we are. God help us.

The chapter is called The Choice to Risk Your Life:

One of my favorite quotes of all time will most likely be familiar to you. It is from a speech by Theodore Roosevelt. It remains one of the greatest motivational speeches ever written. Here is how he addressed the issue of risk and choosing to live a life that is too safe:

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who stives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; who knows the great tnthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievements; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

I love those words, and they inspire me to move forward in spite of my fears. The worst that can happen to me is that I might lose, but if I lose, God is there for me, loving me as He always does. One of the reasons you may not be willing to risk has to do wiht your concept of God and His love. His love allows us to go beyond our fears even to the point of failing over and over again. If we are not willing to risk and willing to fail as we learn from failing, then we may have a problem in the area of our love relationship with God.

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." (1 John 4:18 NIV)

If you have a riskless nature, it may be because you have a loveless nature. Your love relationship with God might be all messed up. You might be so afraid that He will punish you that you are unwilling to step out and enjoy your life by living it to the fullest and using it to serve others. If you live in fear of punishment rather than in the confidence of God's love, it is no wonder that you don't want to risk. You must have God's love, God's Spirit, and God's power if you are to conquer your fears and move into risking your life.

"God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline" (w Tim. 1:7 NIV).

If you are living in fear, you are not living as God intended; He wants you free from fear. He wants to help you move from fear to fearless, willing to take risks with your life so you can feel what life can become. His love is so powerful that if you work through whatever keeps you from experiencing it, you can feel the safety you have been longing for and trying to create in your attempts to avoid risk.

In God's love we are free to love and to love again. We are free to give all of ourselves to another person, knowing that we might experience rejection all over again. In God's love we can fail, because we know that He will take that failure and make something spectacular from it. Knowing that, we ease off building our protective barriers and begin to live life a little more freely and fully.

If you are holding on way too tight, I am writing to encourage you to let go. I am hopeful that you can release your grip and allow God to guid you into some situations that are scary for you. God said, "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you!" (Heb. 13:5 NIV). I am going to ask you to stop right now and just meditate a moment on that passage.

God will never forsake you. There is nothing you can do to run God off. He will never leave you. God will always be there for you. God is the best thing you have going for you. God loves you and will be there to help you pick up the pieces and put them back together again in the form of something far more beautiful than the original. God created you and will always be there for you.

There are many excuses you have used to play it safe. They have worked well for you in your goal to avoid risk, but they have not worked well for you in living a great life. To live a great life you must have risk. You cannot love unless you risk. You cannot even care about someone unless you risk. There is always the change that you will be rejected when you put a part of yourself or all of yourself out there. You canot connect without risk. Loving, caring and connecting - those vital elements of life that give it meaning and purpose - are great reasons to risk.

You cannot make your world small enough to be risk free.

Risk is a healer. It demands faith and trust. It eliminates a lifestyle of self-preservation. Self-preservation and protection ignore the power of God, because you cannot be healed and still be living under your own power. Those who are healed live by the grace of God and in God's power. Each time you step out under God's power, you heal a little of the fear that developed from your troubled past. You have to fully trust God and walk in His power before that last ounce of soul sickness is healed.

You can't allow yourself to be healed if you are holding back and trying to protect yourself from what cannot be prevented - trials and sorrows. You are going to have them, and when you take a risk and move into them under God's power rather than defend against them under your own power, you are choosing to heal.

The great preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, "Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows but only empties today of its strength." You cannot lead a healed life in anxiety. It will rob you of the strength you need today. It will steal from you the tomorrow you were born to enjoy.

The answer for those who need healing from a risk-adverse life is found in 1 Pet. 5:7 "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." (NIV).

Write down what it is you are afraid of. Write out what you have held on to for yourself and what you need to do to give all all your life to God. What needs to take place to feel the peace God has given you and then the courage to go out and live life even though you might be hurt again?

The big lie is" "I must protect myself from any more pain." If you have tried to live your life that way, I have a question for you. How is it going so far? What kind of life is a life of defense, always looking for the next bad thing to deflect away? What you can do is trust God each time a hurt comes along. Trust that while you don't have the power to protect yourself, He has the power to turn every hurt into something that improves who you are and glorifies Him.