The Riskiest Thing You Will NEVER Do

Ever had a dream that you were running from someone?  You know; heart beating, palms sweating, eyes darting back to see if your pursuer is about to overtake you?

I did.  In fact, frequent nights, I lived this nightmare in childhood.

Yet somewhere along the way, my running became a way of life.  And after a time, I couldn’t discern between day and night…or who and what it was I was really even fleeing from.   

And so I ran, I ran from everything, I ran from everyone.

I also had dreams of an older man, with a red barn, constantly drawing me with eyes of love to come walk with him towards it.

But at the old time, old men (any kind of man, not including my earthly Dad) meant “danger”.  So I fought my feelings, resisted, and turned from the one I later recognized as God, drawing me to His storehouse of blessings.

And sometimes we can miss what God has for us because we have become so cloned, conditioned, mechanicalized to keep endlessly running, striving, doing life as fast as we can.

This week I am joining Amy Sullivan for her monthly series, Risk Rejection. At her place, you’ll find a bunch of extraordinary women who are kicking past their fear and taking a big, bold leap of faith, to get where God has called them.  They are letting nothing stop them.  They get it...God is a big God, and He truly has called us to more!

And I have leaped large, lived bold; shared my past, danced in Dominican Republic, colored my hair dark, and just solicited an article to a well known site and got accepted (Woo Hoo)…..

But, this week as I prodded over what God wants me to share….I really felt like He was saying…

Sometimes the riskiest thing you could ever do is, be still.

We all know the story of Mary and Martha.  The one running around “doing”, the other sitting at the feet of Jesus.  And yet, too often “the better thing” pervades me.  It can bypass all of us, because our society tells us we must have measurable outcomes, reports of our contributed efforts, visible fruit from the successes of what we have invested in…

But what if our scale is in heaven, not on this earth?  What if the fruit of our intimacy with God, multiplies faster than anything we could do in our carnal state?  What if we don’t always need to keep running, striving? What if there is a season we just must sit down, rest, vulnerably seeking Him?

 For truth is, the Joy Set before Us overwhelms in a way words are inadequate, anything we might say can seem totally insufficient.

What if the peace in this life doesn’t come from “getting what we want”…but from stopping, being still, and really letting God pursue us.

What if risking rejection is not just a running towards something, but risking being still enough to let God come near and bless us?

But yet, our cultures boast, “go”, “do”, “be”.  And worse yet, we are teaching our kids, “strive harder”, instead of “cease from striving” like Scripture mandates.

I have seen it often, and have lived it too…

Sometimes God can even allow for us to be paralyzed so that we will stop and sit at the “Gate, Beautiful” long enough for God to pursue us.

And what if we stop running to high ground and just sat down right where we are, and let His tsunami of overwhelming and all consuming grace wash over us?

Maybe “childlike” really is where real contentment is found?  Unable to walk, unable to run.  Silent.  Still.  Accessible to God….and what He wants to do with us.

But yet, we get older.  We get stronger.  We think we get wiser.  We strive harder and eventually somehow seem to turn into world producing Gladiators.  But the men and women of God in the Bible were told love trumps all.

Though infancy, and stillness, and a tsunami of His love can seem weak, vulnerable, requiring us to die to ourselves….Love still is the greatest gift of all.  And love, when we have it, will eventually just naturally lead us to produce.

I don’t dream anymore of those dark shadows that haunted me for thirty years.  I have been set free.  I have found that, though the enemy taunts, God’s power and goodness truly does destroy the enemy.

His love is not scary…..something we need not run from….but too.

So, if you are a runner today, if you dance back and forth, and have been playing dodge-ball (like I have) with God….

Will you stop.  Cease from striving?  Really risk vulnerability, and quiet your heart before God?

For sometimes it’s not the mountains we move, the cliffs we leap from that really change the world most….

Sometimes, it’s the courage to be quiet and listen for His whisper, the faith to stop striving, the vulnerability to really embrace all He has for us.  Sometimes its the hope that His plans just might be better for us…than all the marathons of success this world dangles in front of us….

For risk is paramount.  Getting out of your comfort zone is powerfully Biblical.  Living leaping will shake the heavens like complacency never will.

But sometimes loosing it all, crawling to His feet, laying everything we own, are, and think….at those preciously pierced, grace-filled feet….

Is the most risky thing we could ever do.