And He Says, “Take The Risk”

Whoever we may be, living authentically in God’s image is a risk, because it is a rejection of the self-serving drives that enthrall us and keep us afraid to put our integrity on the line and release our compassion.

The choice is whether on this day to be full of ourselves or have fullness of life. We lean towards self-fullness when we ask, “What’s in it for me?”

The lowly paths are truly the most ambitious because they ask us to make the toughest choices. They require us to make sacrifices for good and not gain. They call forth from us the courage to let go of the lesser ambitions of self-advancement for the greater ambitions of God’s kingdom of grace, generosity, and compassion. They invite us to become big enough to become small, whatever our place in the social strata.

There we will find the treasure, the meaning of our humanity, the real fullness of life. Enduring significance is not found in our achievements; it is found in the countless and small ways we value and touch people

Enduring significance is not found in our achievements; it is found in the countless and small ways we value and touch people—those close to us and those considered the least of these. It is not found in the size of our estate, or the level of our social status, or the volume of our cheering crowds; it is found in genuine humility and self-emptying compassion. It is not even found in the size of our charity; it is found in the genuineness of our caring.

This, I believe, is where and how we find the genuine beauty God gives our lives, the beauty of small, the humble glamour of giving ourselves to another…

God places us all near people to be loved and to love us and he says, “Take the risk.”

And he positions us to reach out beyond our inner circle to the larger circle of the “other,” and he says, “Take the risk. Share yourself generously, keep little for yourself… until you are small enough to make a difference that really matters. In that person, that place, that matter, that moment, you will find me. And finding me, you will find life.”

And he says, ”Take the risk. Share yourself generously, keep little for yourself… until you are small enough to make a difference that really matters.

 

*This comes from Phil Needham’s When God Becomes Small – a great book I finished reading last week on my “Wilderness Retreat.”