Risk is another word for faith.  To step out into something that is unknown takes faith because it is a risk.  That is the word the Lord is speaking to me lately…risk.  I find it odd that he would choose this particular time in my life to tell me to take a risk.  Right now, everything in me wants to choose the comfortable way of familiarity.  I need stability and yet everywhere I turn I am hearing the word risk.  Step out.  Live fully. 

The latest place I hear this call to take a risk is the book I am reading…The Cost Of Discipleship by Bonhoeffer.  (The last time I tried to read the book it was so far over my head I never finished it. I thought that maybe I could relate to it better now that cancer has so rudely interrupted my life. And I have found why it is a classic.)

The passage that has my attention at the moment is Luke 9:57-62.  Bonhoeffer discusses the three disciples in the passage, each with his own agenda that blocks him from following the call of Jesus to follow.  I would love to go into the details but I will save that for another time…maybe my book.  The point he makes is that “faith can no longer mean sitting still and waiting-they (those wishing to be disciples) must rise and follow him.  They must burn their boats and plunge into absolute insecurity in order to learn the demand and gift of Christ… A situation must be created, in which it is possible to believe on Jesus as God incarnate; that is the impossible situation in which everything is staked solely on the word of Jesus.” 

That is risking it.  At least that is how I interpret it. An impossible situation creates faith; having the faith to stand on his word alone.  That applies to all of life.  Standing on the word that he is for me not against me in the impossible situation of cancer.  It is stepping out of the comfort zone of life to the call before me…writing a book, taking a chance.  It is not about me, it is about his call to me and my response to it…taking a risk.