Living a Life of Risk - by Jim Massey (Mid-Week Epistole)

Living a life of Risk.

Last week we shared some thoughts about worry and how to handle it in our lives. Today I would like to spend time talking about risking. Let me give you some examples from this poem I once heard:

A wise man once said,
"To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out for another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas and your dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure."

Now all of these things may or may not relate to you, but can you imagine how life would be if we were not to risk living it? We could all place a shell around ourselves and not allow anyone to enter in for fear that they would ask or need something of us and we would fail in that endeavor.

God calls us to risk every day of our lives. He challenges us to risk encountering suffering and sorrow. He calls us to heal broken hearts and lives just as He has so lovingly healed our own.

It is only when we are no longer afraid to risk that we truly become free in our own lives.

Let us pray: Heavenly Father, we at times are so shallow in our faith. We hear Your calling in our lives and we would hesitate because we are afraid of venturing into the unknown. Remind us of your children in the past who have left everything and become a leader of a nation. Show us of others in this world today who have truly walked in the light of Your love and have been called blessed just because they began with a risk and continued with a venture.

Give us these things this day in the blessed name of the one who gave us life, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.

This has been Rev. Jim Massey. Join me next week and we will see if a small cost can have a big result in the end.