Going for Broke
Deuteronomy 29:29
There are often times in our lives when God pushes us to go for broke. As I have journeyed in my relationship with God I am convinced that I cannot figure out the future. The process is a moment-by-moment, day-by-day openness and sensitivity to the Holy Spirit of God. It requires spending time with Jesus and His Word and continu- ally being obedient to Him. I don’t like the fact that He drives me to my knees with problems and tears of pain, but as someone famous said, “God never uses a man greatly until He hurts him deeply” (consider Joseph, Moses, Daniel, Paul, and Jesus as examples). He desires to break our pride, idolatry, lust and anger in order to make us more like Jesus and leave a legacy to generations to come.
Life is very uncertain and our God is full of surprises. As I read my Bible I see over and over how often the proph- ets were surprised when God showed up and came to their aid. I have a love hate relationship with uncertainty. I hate bad things that pop up, but I love positive surprises that are euphoric to my ego. I confess that I am a con- trol freak. (no comments please). Basic to walking with God is that He has to be Lord which means Him calling ALL the shots. Following Jesus means that He is in control of my day, my finances, my plans, and ultimately my eternal destiny. Now I love Him being Lord of my eternal destiny, but day-to-day is my challenge. I want to set the agenda then ask Him to bless it. Sadly, as I look back most of my Christian life has been asking God to jump in on my plans rather than me following Him.
It feels logical and safer to sit back, not stick my neck out and take the easy road rather than risk doing something out of the box. But God is continually calling me to follow Him where nobody else has gone. Peter getting out of the boat is a good example. He said, “Lord, if that is you bid me come and I will come to you”. At that point the other eleven could have said, “me too”, but Scripture does not mention that any of them uttered a word. What would we have done? The Word says that when Peter saw the wind and the waves he began to sink. Yes Peter sank, but it was a defining moment in his life. It was Peter who took the risk outside of his comfort zone. Which would you rather do: step out for the Lord, or sit with Judas? Peter chose correctly and set a great example for the other disciples and us. There is no such thing as risk-free faith. You and I will never see these kinds of life defining moments unless we leave our peers and follow Jesus into the unknown. You will never be who God intends you to be by sitting back with the Judas’ all around you. The greatest regrets will be the God ordained risks that we never took. Sometimes the risks will be painful (Hebrews 11:36-40). The goal of faith is not the elimination of risk, but abandonment to our Lord. In the parable of the talents Jesus makes it plain that we have to take risks in order to be entrusted with more potential. For the disciples to leave their vocation and follow Jesus was huge! What is the Lord asking you to leave? With what is He asking you to trust Him completely?
Many of us can remember a time when we stepped out and saw God do great things in and through our lives, but now we have grown older and “wiser”, so we think. We are too concerned about not losing rather than playing to win. I feel that many of us are very defective in our memory. We think that our past was so good that we are ex- empt from the “now”. I talk to older Christians and sometimes hear them say how hard it was and how good they were, instead of what God is doing now to show His glory. Remember the greater the risk the larger the miracle and the bigger the reward. All of us need to ask the question ”Lord what do you want to do with my life?” The only thing more dangerous than asking that question is not asking it! This is not easy but it is vital and very ex- citing. We are called to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and lose ourselves, because we get back much more than we ever lose. If we want to act in our greatest interest we will always step out, follow Jesus, and obey. Playing it safe is more risky than stepping out for Jesus and going for broke.
