It’s Not Safe Here!

There’s something I need to tell you. It may not be something that feels good as you first hear it. Or maybe it will once you wrap your mind around it.

No…you’ll have to wrap your heart around it too. And then, like me, you may find that you have to do it over and over again.

The Christian life – the REAL Christian life? It’s not safe here.

If we are serious about allowing God to direct our every move, check every crevice of our hearts, turn our crazy minds over to HIM in all that we do, we aren’t going to feel or be safe in this world. That’s the facts, Jack.

We aren’t going to be able to hold on to those little safety nets and fuzzy security blankies that make us feel better about pretending we are taking a real risk when we’re really not because we had the “net” under us all the time anyway. We like soft landings, don’t we?

We aren’t going to be able to safely say that we are sure what we’re doing and where we’re going or staying and we have it all under control and are stable and solid at all times.

We aren’t going to be able to run or to hide from persecution, glaring eyes on occasion, mean-spirited folks who want to do us harm or even well-intentioned people who think they have all the answers. We can’t hide from our own hearts either. Our own dark. Our own breakable, vulnerable selves.

We aren’t going to feel safe in this world.

Can I tell you right now; THAT is really, really uncomfortable, friends!

But what a blessed and glorious peace and joy there is in knowing that the unknown here is very known by our Lord and Savior, Jesus. There’s something freeing about being willing to go where He tells us to whenever He tells us to do so. There’s something beautiful about staying put until He says so too!

He knows what is happening – in our little world and in the lives of everyone else too.

He knows exactly what is going to occur tomorrow, next month, or two seconds from now.

He also has His sovereign hand upon bigger stuff too: Things like eternity, all dimensions, the universe, and existence that can’t be pegged into time, space, or anything else that human minds can fully grasp.

I am starting to think that if it feels safe, we shouldn’t necessarily do it. That doesn’t mean that we can’t make choices that feel good either. I think it just depends upon what your challenge is.

We shouldn’t rule anything out if God is clearly telling us to do it or not to do it. We have to be willing to do the stuff that surpasses human understanding when He tells us to. But we had better be in tune with HIM every step of the way!

For me? It’s living day by day…in a lot of ways. That’s my challenge. It’s having the capacity to make choices now that would wrap things up in a nice little safe and pretty bow, but not making them yet. It’s waiting upon the Lord to tell me when to make the next choice, the next move, the next statement, behavior, action, sacrifice, gesture. The next anything.

It doesn’t matter if it’s big or small. Lately the enemy has been nagging at me because the areas in which I am struggling are so small compared to what others are going through. But pervasive is pervasive, and fear can gain a foothold no matter what we are grappling with, dear friends. Sometimes, it’s the smaller stuff that the enemy likes to use to throw us off track the most!

He is my safety net – that beautiful Jesus of mine. He always has been – always will be.

Too bad I have to remind myself of that every single second of every single day.

Or…maybe that’s not bad.

Maybe that’s quite a wonderful thing after all.

 

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