In a recent devotional I was reading from an anonymous author:

                           RISK

“To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

To reach out for another is to risk involvement.

To place our ideas, our dreams, before a crowd is to risk their loss.

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To live is to risk dying.

To hope is to risk despair.

To try is to risk failure.

Risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.  The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.  He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love … live.  Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave; he has forfeited freedom.”

As I read this I was thinking that there are foolish risks and wise risks.  We are foolish if we risk doing things that we know are contrary to God’s will.  We are foolish if we risk doing something that we think might please God without first praying and seeking His wisdom and guidance.  We are foolish if we are always seeking to please people and not God.  However, we are wise if we risk giving everything to do God’s will.  I was thinking about Abraham who while living a very comfortable life in the city of Ur is called by God: “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.  I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” 

Abraham was obedient to God’s call and risked everything to do God’s will.  Never again was he, and his immediate family, able to live a settled life.  They were wanderers and nomads, who saw the promised land, but never possessed it in their lifetime. Abraham saw the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s promise to be a great nation in the birth of Isaac, but it was not until hundreds of years later that that promise ultimately realized.  Yet because Abraham was willing to risk it all we have seen and live in the light of the last promise of God – “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”  Some people might be fearful of the risk of their obedience to God, but as Christians we should be bold, knowing that whatever the risks God is with us here and now and forever.

--Munn Hinds, Jr.