In a newsletter from a friend of mine, he wrote words that made me smile. “I was born at a very early age in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The reason that I was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is because that’s where my mother happened to be at the time. It seemed like a good idea to be with her on my birthday…”
As I ponder places I have had to be, I think of roads I have been on in the last year. Last winter I was following a semi-trailer near Elk Mountain when a blast of wind blew it over before my eyes and I was too close to miss the crash if he remained in the road. By God’s grace, the semi slid for hundreds of yards on the right side of the road, but both lanes were left open. I was traveling on I-80 knowing it was closed to light semi-trailers—those with empty trucks. I knew it was risky with winds posted at 40, then 60, and then 70 miles per hour.
Most of us find ourselves willing to take important risks. As I attempt to anchor my life in the bedrock of truth, I often encounter risks that must be taken. The risky road is not where the grass grows in my life. I must have been born plunging, because my life has often taken me down hazardous roads since my birth near Hazard, Kentucky. It seems God has affirmed this in my life as He often has placed me in many difficult situations in ministry.
I respond to challenge if it is a risk I believe I must take in obedience to the Lord. There are risks everywhere, but the only risks that truly motivate me are those God calls me to make for His kingdom. In those areas, I move with total abandon and often walk near the danger zone, attempting to rescue people who are trapped in mire or headed on a road where the bridge is out.
God has given me a passion for obedience to Him at all costs in every arena. My modus operandi is that if God has called me to obey, He will not only open the doors, but protect me in the process. To risk for the sake of risk is foolhardy in my judgment. I get fidgety around people whose passion for risk for risk’s sake plunges them from cliffs into murky waters. But when God calls upon me to risk for Him, the surge of joy unspeakable runs through my veins. “I am ready, Lord; send me. I will take up my cross and follow You, Lord.”
Seldom have I so rejoiced in ministry as when leading many to Christ in Russia, Moldova, Romania, and being called before the KGB, and being shaken down at the Russian border. The issue was, “Whose risk is it?” If it is my own making, I balk after reflection. But the daring in me is appealed to when I see the call is from the throne of God, when the mission is clearly under Christ’s banner. I reject the cautious path when the orders I sense I hear are from God’s throne.
To achieve any of our dreams, we have to face some snow-packed, slippery roads. We have to get up and go to work. We have to risk the lion that conceivably could be in the streets.
Some years ago, up by Merna Junction, a huge mountain lion bounded in three jumps past our truck. My wife and I might have gotten out to walk a distance in this area on an elk hunting trip.
Needless to say, we didn’t walk there. But seeing our goal and fearfully freezing in panic will leave us with results that are equally devastating.
It would benefit us if we would evaluate our dreams, give them to God, and then begin our trek across the barren desert or the snowy trails towards our goals. The same God who took us through in the past will be with us on the road ahead, if we trust in His Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. May God help us all to risk and reach those goals He has planned for us.
Pastor Richard P. Carlson is a pastor at Rock Springs Free Evangelical Church. He can be reached via email at rcvjesus@gmail.com.
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