Playing it Safe

Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

Dear God,

Taking a risk is a hard thing for me to do.  I like to play it safe.  I have a deeply human need to be able to predict the outcome of a venture taken.  I must be able to insure a high probability of success before exposing myself to risk.  I don't want to fail, lose face to others, ruin my reputation, or worse. 

When You present me with an impossible challenge, something inside me shrinks.  I want to play it safe.  The challenge seems insurmountable.  Too big.  Too impossible.  But You lead me into the face of it.  

Give me the courage to risk everything for You.  Playing it safe keeps life down to a size I think I can manage.  Playing it safe allows me to pursue my dreams, ambitions, and desired relationships. Playing it safe assumes that I know best for my life.  

Then You ask me the deep and probing question, "So, once you have lived your life, calculating and controlling it as you think best, then what?  Once you gain the entire world, its pleasures, its relationships, its wealth, power, and prestige, then what?  Once you pursue a lifelong path away from me, what makes you think that you can find the way back at your convenience?"

William Barclay writes:  "In every decision of life we are doing something to ourselves; we are making ourselves a certain kind of person; we are building up steadily and inevitably a certain kind of self and character; we are making ourselves able to do certain things and quite unable to do others.  It is perfectly possible for a man to gain all the things he set his heart upon, and then to awaken one morning to find that he has missed the most important things of all" (Barclay in The Gospel of Matthew, vol. 2, p. 169).

Saint Augustine said it powerfully:  "We were made for Thee and we cannot rest until we rest in Thee."  The only true safety is a life of obedience to You, lived in the center of Your perfect will.

Someone once told me that the safest place in the world is in the center of the will of God.  I choose the safety of Your cross.  I choose the safety of losing my life in You.  I choose to play it safe.

In the Name of my Keeper and Protector who keeps me safe,

Amen.