I almost killed my friend.
Okay, I don’t think his life was truly in jeopardy … maybe just a potential broken arm (or two) …
Yet, despite the risk and the nerves of watching the ladder bounce around the top of the chairs, we still had to do it …
It was this past Wednesday evening and Andrew and I were rushing to get the chapel camera set up to record the start of my new series on the book of Ruth (more on that in a couple weeks).
The camera had been taken down for a theatre event and at the last minute, we realized we needed to get it all set up … except all the adjustable ladders were no longer on our campus.
We had a regular 8-foot ladder, but we needed to go up to around 15 feet.
After several minutes of attempting to locate a tall ladder, I suggested we stack our cushioned chapel chairs and set the ladder on top.
I know it wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but what other option did we have? Limitations forced creativity (albeit at the risk of someone’s broken arm).
With four stacks of chairs, each holding a leg of the ladder, Andrew (our tech guy) climbed the wobbly 15 feet to get the camera set up.
I admit, compared to the epic stories of risk-taking throughout Christian history, this was laughable and wouldn’t even make the list. But it got me thinking …
It’s a broad generalization, but …
We are often willing to do foolish and even risky things when it is self-serving, yet slow to risk everything on behalf of Jesus.
Yet shouldn’t we as Christians be willing and eager to risk everything for the cause of Christ?
C.T. Studd asked the same question in the 1800s when he heard how men were rushing into interior Africa in search of gold. Most Europeans who were seeking after gold died within a few weeks of entering the Congo. And yet, he noticed while hundreds of men were willing to risk their lives for gold, Christians were unwilling to risk their life of God. Studd writes,
Last June at the mouth of the Congo there awaited a thousand prospectors, traders, merchants and gold seekers, waiting to rush into these regions as soon as the government opened the door to them, for rumor declared that there is an abundance of gold. If such men hear so loudly the call of gold and obey it, can it be the ears of Christ’s soldiers are deaf to the call of God, and the cries of the dying souls of men? Are gamblers for gold so many, and gamblers for God so few?(1)
When Brother Andrew was asked at the end of his life what he wish he could do over in his life, his answer was “be more radical.” I look at Brother Andrew and already consider his life radical for the Kingdom and Gospel, but in his hindsight, he realized he should have risked more.
Martin Luther said, “Faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.”(2)
As believers, the people of faith, shouldn’t we do what Brother Andrew desired and Martin Luther said … and be willing to risk death a thousand times in trusting in our great God?!
I’m talking more than climbing ladders to secure a camera … but a life of “living, bold trust in God’s grace” … a life of radical dependence, obedience, and givenness to the Gospel and glory of Christ.
Where to Start
It’s easy to never start because we don’t know where or how to begin.
So let me encourage you with a thought …
Start where you are … and start simple.
Living a life of radical abandonment and availability begins with a simple yes to Jesus today.
Am I willing to take one step today … and another tomorrow … and then another …
I’ve often used the illustration of going to the gym. We get all excited to become healthy, so we get a gym membership, go the first day and kill ourselves with a six-hour workout. The next day, it doesn’t seem like much has changed and our body is hurting … so we never go back.
It would actually be better if we started small … but stayed consistent in going … ever increasing the length and intensity. It may not look like much at first—what good is five minutes on the treadmill and lifting a 10-pound dumbbell going to do? But if we start small and keep taking steps, it is only a matter of time before we become healthy and find a strange love for the gym.
We should always be willing to do big things for God … but more often than not, we need to start with a small step, or many of us will never get started.
A single step of obedience.
It may not look like much at first, but over time, we will discover a life of radical obedience, dependence, givenness, and availability.
It has been said that the road to martyrdom is paved with a thousand daily deaths.(3)
Will you choose today to take up your cross (Luke 9:23) and respond to Jesus in obedience? Remember, it starts with the small things, which prepares you for the bigger radical risks.
FOOTNOTES
(1) Norman Grubb, C.T. Studd: Cricketer and Pioneer (Fort Washington, PA: CLC Publications, 1982), 118.
(2) Taken from Mark Water, The New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations (Alresford, Hampshire: John Hunt Publishers Ltd, 2000), 343.
(3) I first heard this from my friend Ben Zornes.
Photo Credit: Pawel Janiak
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