Be very careful. Not careful about taking risks. You never accomplish anything of value without a healthy risk involved.
Instead, be careful about being too careful.
That was pretty confusing, right? Let’s start again…
You really need to take care about being careful. “Careful” could be exactly how you miss out on the best stuff in life.
I have some friends who decided to do a musical I would never have attempted. Though they live in a small town, they chose a show that demanded an extremely large, multi-talented cast. They needed lots of people who could sing, dance, and act. So their show demanded about 50+ “triple threats”.
If they’d asked me, I would have advised against the show. Do something simpler that you know for sure you can accomplish. Instead, they took a risk. And thanks to that risk, they’ve got a sold-out show now. People in this little town are amazed at what they’ve accomplished.
But if they’d been “careful”, they would have missed being a local sensation.
When I’ve looked back on some of the risks I’ve taken, sometimes I wonder if I should have played it safer. About 12 years ago I quit my job and started a church, from scratch, to reach people who were unreached. During the 5 years it lasted, I had to use my own money to keep it going. Since we’d wanted to reach people who weren’t already involved in church, most of our folks didn’t tithe. So I drained my retirement account to support it, until there wasn’t anything left.
After it was all over, I wondered if I missed God’s will by starting the church. That’s what people usually do – they take a risk, it doesn’t work out the way they thought it would, and they determine they made a mistake. But when you do that, you’re learning the wrong lesson. That’s what the Enemy wants you to learn, so you’ll never do anything truly great in this life.
In God’s Kingdom, success is measured on whether you actually did what He told you to do. Did you do what God told you to do? Good. Because absolutely nothing else matters.
However, I’m not talking about being “careless”. That’s a recipe for destruction. You should definitely know what the downside of any venture is and then count the cost…
“But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. They would say, ‘There’s the person who started that building and couldn’t afford to finish it!’ – Luke 4:28
But people who don’t take risks are “careful” – they are “full of care”. They live their lives hedging their bets and miss out on the adventures God wants to take them on. Then they wonder why their lives are so boring.
What a surprise, to be surprised at the fact your life has no surprises. You never risked anything where the game wasn’t fixed and the outcome guaranteed. You only did the things you knew were a sure bet.
How boring. And how unChristlike.
You see, Jesus always asked people to do reckless things. He demanded His disciples leave everything to follow Him, and told those with excuses (“let me go bury my father”) to never mind bothering.
“Take nothing for your journey,” he instructed them. “Don’t take a walking stick, a traveler’s bag, food, money, or even a change of clothes.” – Luke 9:3
To people who saw poverty on a daily basis, He taught about how God clothed the lilies of the field and fed the birds of the air. So they shouldn’t worry.
Hey, Jesus! That’s pretty irresponsible teaching you’re giving them! You need to teach your followers about savings accounts and the value of a good 401K instead!
Although I know some of my theologically-astute friends would say Jesus couldn’t be surprised, I believe He actually stepped away from His omniscience when He came to earth. The Bible says He “grew” in wisdom, so He must have allowed Himself to lack it in order to grow in it. He sure acted amazed by the faith of a few folks, like that Centurion in Luke 7. That’s why He repeatedly reminded the disciples He did nothing unless the Father told Him to. In fact, He even said He didn’t know the day or hour of His own second coming – only the Father knows.
Does that surprise you? ;0)
All that’s to say it’s possible Jesus could be surprised by things. So maybe there’s some things God can know but limits Himself from knowing. Like who will accept Him and who won’t? Maybe.
Jesus even risked His own life on you coming to Him. He lived out a “reckless love” (as the song goes) in that He had no guarantees you’d ever listen to Him. But He loved us enough to die for us JUST IN CASE we might actually receive Him.
I know some Christians would advise me against such recklessness. They’d never think of doing such a crazy thing as starting a church, and would stop as soon as it wasn’t profitable.
And yet, all I can think about is the baptisms of those new Christians we reached in my little “start-up church”. Since we couldn’t afford a building, we’d go to the beach and watch all these folk with no religious background get dunked into the Family of God. They were so bold, they didn’t care what the vacationers on the beach thought.
I’ll bet those sun-bathers were surprised to see a religious service going on at the Gulf of Mexico. What fun!
So I’m determined, even as I age, to keep embracing risk and to avoid ever being “careful”. I’m not called to be “full of care” but full of God’s adventurous Spirit. If I keep listening, who knows…even if nothing I do surprises Him, I think I might still be able to do something that truly amazes Him.
Hey, you might just do it too…if you’re not careful.
Copyright (c) 2024 by David Gipson
