The Risk of Living: Moving Beyond Safety & Security by Charles Ringma (one of the Vanuatu Mission Teams devotions) (from your newsletter that you can get on AnchorOnline) 2 Corinthians 5:7-9 …for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. We can create a very safe world for ourselves. We establish our routines. Cultivate a few friendships. Develop certain family patterns. Establish our ideas about God and the meaning of life. Maintain certain spiritual disciplines and take on certain commitments. None of these things it itself need necessarily be inappropriate. But all this may spring from the doubtful motivation of trying to make ourselves a safe and secure world. A world that guards us from risks. A world that shelters us from new challenges. A world where the very fabric of our routines not only sustains us, but also anaesthetises us. The inner life cannot fully develop under these circumstances. Safety is not always a key to growth. But questioning, searching and risk-taking are. Henri Nouwen makes the observation that the questions we raise “have to be lived rather than developed intellectually.” In other words, we need to cease taking our world for granted and begin taking our questions into the arena of life by living them out practically. True questioning can only lead to a new doing. Searching can only lead to a shattering of some of our securities. And risk-taking can, when born of a desire to live more truly and authentically, can only lead to a new life. 2 Corintians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (Vanuatu Mission Team devotion)
Posted on: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 19:45:32 +0000