It’s a terrifying question, isn’t it?

What if it doesn’t all work out? What if what I thought was God’s voice was really just my own wishful thinking? What if my best efforts fall flat and I end up back at square one?

See, I think “What if?” must be the enemy’s favorite question. “What if?” propels us to inactivity. “What if?” tries to convince us that whatever we do couldn’t possibly be worth the risk. Fear of the unknown and fear of failure constantly convince us that the best course of action is to set quietly and make as few waves as possible just to stay afloat.
But what if you could have changed the world?

What if one Saturday of service brings a weary widow face to face with the love of God? What if her response to that is to cry out to her Savior for the first time? What if that check, even just those ten dollars, make a family’s dreams a reality? What if your gift, even though it felt insignificant at the time, is the reason that a child somewhere has a family?

When you look at it that way, isn’t the bigger risk staying at home? I’m learning that the potential for failure isn’t the same as failure. It’s worse. So then, to sit there and let the opportunities pass me by because the risks are too frightening is just a more subtle, more crippling form of failure.

On Friday I took a very small, very insignificant risk. I took my mentee Mario out to dinner. I committed to hang out with him once each week a while back, but lately, I’ve not been as… affluent as I would like to be, so I’ve had to tell him to hang on until I got my hands on some money. On Friday I spent half of my weekly food budget taking Mario to the Summer Palace Chinese Buffet, and I know that technically that’s pretty foolish, but it was right.

And I understand that my situation isn’t the same as everyone else’s. I get that my food budget for myself is different from a mother’s food budget for her own kids. I realize that as a college student, my time is far more flexible and in far greater supply than that of a husband and father who also holds down a full-time job. But I also think that for any of us, our risks start small.  I think that’s what Jesus’ parable about being faithful with little before we are entrusted with much means.

I just think that when God calls us to risk, that it isn’t really a risk at all. I’ll take his advice over any economist’s any day of the week.