I hate risk.
I hate it because I am afraid of it.
I hate taking a chance and being wrong.
Being wrong always bears pain and shame for me.
I am being driven so crazy by how present this thinking is in me, that I just want to do something that I know is absolutely foolish and risky.
What if the only way that I can learn to trust God in risk is to know that even when I get it wrong He's still going to get it right if I enter into that decision with a pure heart?
I once heard a mentor say that he would always err on the side of obedience. That didn't make sense to me. How could you ever err with obedience?
The problem with that question is that it assumes that it is possible to always know for sure exactly what it is that God wants us to do. Is that really possible? It never has been for me. My flesh gets in the way of hearing God way too much.
To refocus, is there any way to learn how to forgive other than to be wronged by someone and have to choose to forgive? Is there any other way to learn patience than to be driven to the point of impatience and having to choose patience anyway. Is there any way to build any muscle except to break it down and then let the body heal it?
Maybe the answer is not to constantly run from my brokenness, but to more fully accept that God is in my life, even with all my nasty mess. Maybe it isn't too good to be true. Maybe He really will pick me up no matter how many times I fall after i take off the training wheels.
That strikes a very particular parallel in my life. I didn't learn how to ride a bike until I was ten. I loved riding my bike when I was five with my training wheels. It was a cool Knight Rider bike with a big black KITT shaped console on top of the handle bars. It wasn't long before I realized that I was one of the oldest kids with training wheels. I told my mom that I wanted to learn how to ride without them. She tried to hold the seat and give a push, but I was just too scared. I'm sure the absence of a strong male figure didn't help. I tried a few more times over the next couple years, but I would always give up too easy. Man did I feel like a dork riding a scooter when all my friends would be cruising on their bikes. Eventually I just picked up a friend's bike that they had laid aside and just started doing it. Maybe God gave me grace and just made me learn so that I wouldn't miss out on all the cool adventures to be had over the next few years.
The principle of risk in itself is a bike for me. I've tried it a few times and almost always fallen off. I tried to take off the training wheels with little success and resigned myself to just not being able to do what everybody else seems to do so easily. What I am coming to realize is that a whole new world is waiting for me on the other side of the this principle. I must master it and it simply won't happen without just doing it.
For the first time in awhile, my heart is stirring and it's time to start following my heart again.
I have a Father now, and I need to trust that He won't let me end in shame as I pursue Him.
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