When was the last time you took a risk? When was the last time you made a move so bold and so audacious that unless God stepped in, you would truly fail?

Think about it ... when was it? In fact ... have you ever taken a risk it at all?

Most of us live our Christianity in a very safe place of "no-risk" and secure rationale. We determine to "plod along" through life and to stay as far away from the edge of fearless faith as possible. We embrace a boring mentality of protected and impervious choices.

After all, we dare not pull a "Peter" and get out of the boat in the middle of a ferocious storm. Who lives like that?

Peter was a risk-taker of the finest kind. He left everything he had been generously given and everything society valued in order to follow Jesus. He left the security of the family business and encroached upon his father's approval in order to follow this Man who had absolutely no place to lay His head.

Would you do that?  Would you leave sure financial security if Jesus called you to follow Him through the desert ... and through storm-tossed waters ... and to confront lepers, the demon-possessed and the religious hierarchy?

Peter had the pure and unabashed courage to walk on the water while the other disciples were terrified. Can you just picture Matthew and John taking their blood pressure lest they suffer a stroke from unmatched and undesired excitement?

Would you do that? Would you risk your very life by choosing to step out of the boat of protection and walk on water with Jesus?

Would you do what the woman with the issue of blood chose to do and push your way through a stifling, crowding throng in order to touch a Man? This suffering and weak woman broke through all societal norms when she, who had bled for 12 relentless years, reached out to touch the only One who could make her whole.

Would you be willing to offend society in order to get close to Jesus? Would you?

What risks are you willing to take in your walk with Christ?

Most of us live a life so boring and so common that we rarely have the need to call out "Help!" to the Holy Spirit. There will probably be a time or two during your life on earth when you need a little extra of His power, but have you ever lived in such a way that you were desperate for His divine and miraculous intervention?

I believe that God may be calling a generation to take risks as never before. I have heard His voice call me to leave behind the security of dependable income and visible comfort in order to serve my Savior. I must choose whether or not to obey Him with reckless and fierce abandon or with safe thinking and conservative choices. 

I must choose to live a life either of stifling mediocrity or of unmatched faith! I must choose how I will live this life that I have been given and so must you.

By choosing not to choose ... you are, in reality, choosing the humdrum of "safe" religion. However, if, like me, you have heard Him call your name from the middle of the worst storm of life, then you must go. You must follow the One through uncharted waters who has called you by name.

I must reach out and touch, through the confusion of cultural crowds, the only One who has the power to heal and to sustain. I must push my way through the anger and the indignation of a culture so vitriolic that it accuses me by its very mass.

I dare not live a safe life; I dare not live an easy existence. I am compelled to choose to live a life of unmatched and uncommon risk because of the One who has called me to follow Him.

I must.

Carol McLeod is an author and popular speaker at women's conferences and retreats, where she teaches the Word of God with great joy and enthusiasm. Carol encourages and empowers women with passionate and practical biblical messages mixed with her own special brand of hope and humor. She has written five books, including No More Ordinary, Holy Estrogen!, The Rooms of a Woman's Heart and Defiant Joy! Her most recent book, Refined: Finding Joy in the Midst of the Fire, was released last August. Her teaching DVD The Rooms of a Woman's Heart won the Telly Award, a prestigious industry award for excellence in religious programming. You can also listen to Carol's "A Jolt of Joy" program daily on the Charisma Podcast Network. Connect with Carol at justjoyministries.com.

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