Risk

September 1972. Married two years. No job. Fresh out of school. What is the most logical move?

 

Hey, I was 22. I did not make logical moves. We packed up our Toyota with our life and headed west from New York City. My wife had threatened to leave me but changed her mind. "We're going to what?!" We are going to, "Go, hun."

 

For the next month, we saw all the sites few saw. Stayed at Motel 6 (then $6.66 a single, $7.77 a night for a double. 25 cents for an hour of TV.) To Vancouver, British Columbia to Los Angeles to Salt Lake to Cheyenne to Boulder. In Boulder, we stayed in my college roommate's living room (with 3 other guys.) Was unemployed for 6 months. Then life opened up.

 

I was no Abraham, leaving home for noble reasons. God was calling but I was not listening at the time. Yet, as we look back, we see God's hand in our life then, even as we refused to acknowledge him in ours.

 

There is a fine line between divinely inspired risk and stupidity and I am not sure where to find it. But I think we risk too little today. As a result, we live punier lives than God has imagined for us. Safety can not only be boring, it can be fatal.

 

Maybe what needs to die on the Cross Friday is the perception of and the investment in "safety."

 

'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where

 you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.

So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground.

See, here is what belongs to you.'

Matthew 25:24b-25