Risk it all. That’s when amazing, glorious things happen. — from the October Write Right eLetter
The writing life — and the life of faith — is not a safe life. To play it safe, means to risk little and to accomplish even less. To grow, to become the person God has created me to be, requires risking it all. No cards are held back for safekeeping. Everything is put on the table. Everything is entrusted to the One who dealt the cards in the first place.
To do anything less is to reside on the fence. I hold onto what I think is right. I keep a backup plan just in case something doesn’t go right, meaning, doesn’t go my way. I am not trusting in God. I might say I am, but my heart, mind, and body say the opposite. Fear colors everything. “What if?” clouds every moment.
That is no way to live. To experience freedom, I have to be all in. I have to let go of my way of doing things, the old way of living. Real life — abundant life — is found in living in the new. I, like Ruth, say, “…where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge…Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me” (Ruth 1:16-7, NASB).
The old life has to be put to death. The new has to be put on. I have to throw myself into that life and trust in the One who provided it, the One who does “far more abundantly” than anything I could think or ask (Ephesians 3:20-1, NASB). That’s the way to experience life to the fullest, both as an artist and as a Christ follower. I have to risk it all. Nothing held back. That’s when amazing, glorious things happen.
Image: Ross Elliott (Creative Commons)