Standing at the counter of the local gas station, I impatiently waited my turn to pay for my Diet Coke and head out the door. All I wanted was to just pay for my Diet coke and go. I know I’ve got a problem! The three people in front of me, one by one, took turns sharing with the cashier where they have been today and where they were going for the rest of the day and every conversation ended with, “Have a safe trip.” When my turn finally came and I paid the cashier, she looked in my direction and said, “And you have a safe trip too!” Without even thinking, I replied, “I’m not going anywhere I need to be safe.” She just smiled and I headed out the door.
Often we fill the air with the sound of the words, “Have a safe trip”. Its intention is that we would have trouble free travel. So that we would return home at least in the same condition we left. But when you listen to the words and really think about them, it kind of makes you feel all nauseous. “Safe,” “grandma,” they go together. I can’t for the life of me think of one thing I have ever done that amounted to anything that I would have cast upon it a label called “safe.” In fact, safe amounts to boring. It becomes the thing you do to make sure “you don’t.” Know what I mean?
In all of my great times in life, never did I suggest we go out and do something safe.
No one would go! Reading the Bible, I find an incredible image of God. What a guy. The things he got himself into. Really, you find out that he’s not sitting at home, “Playing it safe.” Rather you find him hanging out with some despicable characters, totally unsafe, out walking the streets at “ungodly hours!”
The temptation during tough times is to play it safe. Be a little “Turtle-ish” and pull your head back in to your shell. Be careful. Slow down. Play it safe. I almost want to throw up at the life draining words that just came out of my mouth. Why? Because in all my years, (if they amount to anything) in all my understanding, in all my “Born Days” as Grandma said. I have never met God playing it safe. He is not there. In the midst of the total depravity that was my soul. God met me and it was not safe. He reached across a lifetime of crap to extend himself to me through Christ, but it was not safe. In fact, I have never seen him in such places you could deem safe. He just doesn’t spend anytime there.
Lately there have been things taking place that sends a call deep into the recesses of my mind that begs I play it safe. It rifles through all the reasons and benefits of “safe.” Of which there are many, it shares the comfort of a safe life and the stress free moments only it can bring. Man, I can see the lemonade now, but I am reminded that God did not play it safe when he reached out to me. Truthfully, he risked everything.
Tonight there was a meeting of a group of women in our church of just the kind of people that Christ has risked everything for. Believe me. If you’re into acting like a Christian, you wouldn’t have survived it. Because it wasn’t safe. Life has not been safe for them. They have stories and struggles beyond most people’s comprehension and yet they are discovering Christ. Not church. Christ! Not how to act, but how to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That is significant, hard work that only God can bring. That is real live stuff that can’t be contained in a box labeled Church. However, from it comes a real faith walk.
We must stop suggesting to others that following Christ makes everything safe, that if you commit your life to Christ it’ll all be ok. If God is not one thing he is not safe. He is reckless with his love, daring with his desires and completely over the top when it comes to risks for greatness and he expects the same from us. Nothing I have is worth not trading for one person to “get it right,” one family to be made right, one man to see the value he has to God. Nothing!
We have challenges here, but I know we are on the right path. Our struggles to grow a young church sometimes overwhelm us and we are way in over our heads, but God is here. I know it, because it’s “Not Safe Here.”
We’ve Only One Life ~ It Soon Will Be Past ~ Only What’s Done For Christ Will Last
