“Safe” theology is not only the antithesis to your becoming fully alive, it is the bedrock to a misspent life—one full of many regrets.
We all want more courage. More boldness. More audacity. But audacity comes with a cost. We safely Tweet and Instagram our favorite quotes about courage. We often pray abstractedly for more courage—not even considering the price it requires. Then we wonder why our lives are still so full of fear, worry, anxiety, mediocrity, and trepidation. It’s because a life of audacity… a life of no regrets comes with a cost. In order to experience the fullness of courage God longs to fill us with, we must be willing to give up our need to feel comfortable and safe. It’s a demand that goes against the forces of our nature. Everything in us yearns for comfort and security.
The world is barraging us with messages and advertisements to make our lives more comfortable and more secure. But as long as this is your primary goal in life, Fear will always be your Master. More than any other factor in life, a great many people today make the bulk of their decisions based on what will make them comfortable or safe, rather than what will make them become fully alive. It’s safer to live within the confines of our gated neighborhoods than to go outside of our comfort and serve the distressed in our communities. It’s safer to harbor ourselves at the dock of social isolation, to withdrawal from people altogether, than it is to take on the perilous seas of community once you’ve been burned by the ugly side of relationships—especially in church life.
It’s more comfortable to kick back, watch action movies and adventure flicks on our 60” HD television screens, packing butter popcorn and armed with a semi-automatic remote control, than it is to go out boldly and be a part of a real adventure in loving our neighbors, serving disadvantaged children in our communities, volunteering with a local outreach, or leading our families in God’s mission.
If you live your life with comfort and safety as the core value of your existence, Regret will be the harrowing creditor awaiting you at the end of your life to collect interest on dues paid for mediocrity, complacency, and vanity. When we pursue comfort and security as the ultimate value of our lives, our faith is reduced to a mere knowledge of the Almighty rather than a growing intimate relationship with Him. Our theology becomes as good as a dead man’s creed. God wants so much more from your faith than just memorizing some verses from the Bible. He wants you fully alive… dancing in the rhythm of his grace and holding nothing back.
Read more of Audacity: Find Your Crazy. Change The World.