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God loves meeting us at our place of risk

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When Amanda prayed for the blind lady in Kenya, she was taking a number of risks: she could look foolish she could disappoint the blind lady she could waste time if nothing happened, onlookers could become cynical So many of us see needs like the woman's nee…
By Seth Barnes
By Seth Barnes
joyWhen Amanda prayed for the blind lady in Kenya, she was taking a number of risks:
she could look foolish
she could disappoint the blind lady
she could waste time
if nothing happened, onlookers could become cynical
So many of us see needs like the woman's need for eyesight and we say to ourselves, "That's impossible, God wouldn't respond if I were to ask him right now." And we move on.
 
When Amanda prayed the first time, not much happened. So she prayed a second time. At this point, there were hopeful signs, but still no clear sight. So she prayed a third time and it was then that God gave the full healing. What Amanda learned and later shared in the comment section of my blog about it is, "God really loves meeting us at our place of risk."
 
If you can latch onto that truth, it will change your life. Many of us are like the fearful steward who buries the talent in the ground, worried about what might happen.
 
But God is like you or me in this way: he loves to be trusted. He wants to partner with us to change the world, but he asks us to trust him in ways that seem unnatural for us.
 
I've been fortunate to see God move in dramatic ways during my life. Not only have I seen healing miracles, I've seen God take my dreams of building ministries and breathe on them in ways that amazed me. I find that when I approach him with my calculations, risking little, he matches my small faith with his answer. But when I jump out there as Amanda did and risk a lot, he meets me in that place of risk and backs me up.
 
Of course this is the sort of thing that Jesus was perpetually looking for in his disciples. He was often disappointed and would declare, "Oh man of little faith." But on occasion someone would show up and risk public humiliation by believing he had supernatural power, and Jesus would be delighted, saying things like, "Never have I seen such faith."*
 
A lot of religious leaders started out believing in a big God and risking big. But they grew comfortable over time and stopped taking risks, inadvertently setting an example of faithless Christianity for their followers. Drain the risk out of your "faith" and you've got dead religion that looks like a lot of our mainline denominations that are experiencing the drip, drip, drip of membership attrition.
 
God is a lot more personal and a lot more interested in proving himself powerful than a lot of us realize. Have you stopped believing him for miracles? When was the last time that you risked big and trusted him for something impossible? He still opens blind eyes. Today would be a good day to re-examine those dreams you thought he wasn't interested in. He loves to meet us at our place of risk.
 

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