As I've gotten older, I recognized more my propensity toward safe bets and sure things. Words like "let's just stay in tonight, honey" or "I'm not sure I can commit to that with my schedule being as busy as it is" to some might appear like healthy boundaries and balance. But as these words become the default and the norm, they become symptomatic to a greater issue...the illusion of personal safety.
Today, as I'm entering back into a new semester, the chapel speaker focused in on Numbers 13. As he unpacked the report from the spies as they came back from the land which the LORD promised, I recognize the same default of safety. "Let's stay in tonight, Moses" and "I'm not sure I can commit to that considering the size differential" become their words. Their safety lie in milk and honey. Their safety lie in predictable circumstances of slavery in Egypt. Their safety was not found in the LORD Himself.
For the past three semesters, and thirty-some-odd years, I have built for myself safe houses. Conversations centered on course work and theological abstractions. Relationships consisting of casual exchanges and one another's basic needs. A cup of sugar from a neighbor here, help with a tough translation there, advice about future ministry placement anywhere but little which asks me to step outside of my doorway or extend a hand from an open window. I want to answer the phone without a glance at the caller ID but what if it's so and so? I want to initiate a conversation with a stranger who appears lost or lonely but how much investment will it ask of me? I want to risk but I want to risk to be on my terms.
My prayer is that the LORD would continue to remind me of His promises to provide, His providing the means toward the promise and His being the only way in which the promises were fulfilled. The land was promised. The enemy's defeat was promised. Caleb, who took the risk to speak against the safe-seekers, remembered the ways of the LORD. May I take the risk do the same. Step out of comfortable places into uncharted lands within the shelter of the LORD.
