The bus driver says, “Get behind the yellow line please.” Your mom yells, “Be careful!” every time you walk out the door. Bright tape and ropes designate the safest paths we should walk and teachers tell our children to color within the lines. Everywhere I go, I see signs or hear messages of precaution. “Safety first!” says Bob the Builder.
Is it human nature to create safe walls to fit within or is it the walls we have created that program the human spirit to fear the unsafe?
Take a walk down memory lane for a moment and try to remember some of the most exciting, most valuable, life changing experiences you ever had. What were you doing? Were you at home, safe and warm watching TV? I bet you will say no. I bet something profoundly exciting comes to mind: playing in the rain, sliding down a hill of ice with 50 other people crammed on one tarp, or maybe trying to outrun a raging bull chasing after you in a pick up truck at 45 mph (and yes, I know a person it’s happened to).
My mind immediately went to the open waters of Maui. After an extended boat ride, I realized that I would be snorkeling in the middle of the ocean with just some flippers and a tube to breathe with. I would be in the water with unknown creatures from the abyss: creatures in my imagination that had very sharp teeth and were always hungry. Having never snorkeled before and feeling quite small in the midst of all that water, I turned pale green that afternoon and considered staying on the boat. As I sat nauseously pondering survival scenarios, I caught a glimpse of what I had only dreamed of seeing: a green sea turtle. I made a quick plan to stab any sharks in the eye with my dull snorkel (and imagined my heroic cover story in Time magazine) and jumped into the open ocean. My fear was washed away on the water’s surface where I floated hand-to-flipper with 13 giant sea turtles for one precious hour of my life.
Was it safe? Some might say yes. Millions of people have safely swum in the ocean with far worse than sea turtles and come out ok. But ask the few that got bit or attacked by tiger sharks which hang around and eat sea turtles and they will scream, “NOT SAFE!”
My mother quietly purses her lips every time she finds out I’m going riding. “People die on those machines,” she warns. I brush it off . But I hear her voice at least once every time I reach the top of a 150 foot sand dune in Glamis. Feeling my stomach clenched all the way up in my throat, I often feel a moment of panic at the thought that what went up, must go down. Every time I tell myself I’m never going to do this again. And every time I reach my destination, bruised or un-bruised, I look back, laugh and scream, “Let’s do it again!”
Was it safe? Probably not. I know people who have been crippled following the same trails I have. But somehow the risk fades away with the wind as you stand above of a sea of sand at sunset. As you watch orange and pink personify themselves as the breath of God and then bleed into the horizon, you sense the marvel of the Creation. And when the sky darkens and the stars appear as if for the first time, you feel a sense of majesty and awe. In those moments you feel the blood alive in your veins and you feel closest to the glory and splendor of God. From the view of the mountain top you realize every effort and hazard on the journey was worth it.
It’s sad to admit this: but these moments are few and far between.
Why is it that we spend most of our lives looking for and living in the “safety zone” when our destiny is waiting somewhere “outside the box”? I often wonder why we seek out a life of ease and “comfort” when the entire fun, cool, life changing-stuff happens everywhere else BUT the safety zone!
I am learning that “safety” is a relative term. Safety is really only a perception. I think most of you would agree with me that skydiving is not safe. Twenty seven people a year die while skydiving (probably from a heart attack in my opinion). Yet every day you and I get in a car and we drive “safely” to work with our airbags and steel around us. Or so we think. 5,000 people die in car accidents each year. That means we are 70 times safer jumping out of an airplane than driving.
This doesn’t mean that I’m suggesting you jump out of a perfectly good airplane. What it means is that tomorrow is not guaranteed. James 4:14 says, “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”
James was teaching what he learned from God: life needs to be LIVED NOW. Not observed. Not studied. Not read about. LIVED. You were meant to be a participator: a key player in the opportunity of a lifetime.
ONE lifetime.
ONE lifetime with immeasurable days to figure out who and what we live for.
ONE lifetime to intentionally jump in and EXPERENCE our destiny.
ONE lifetime to marvel at the splendor of God through human eyes.
ONE lifetime to love like there is no tomorrow.
ONE lifetime to give it ALL and look back from the mountain top and say, “Every trial; every hazard; every drop of blood and all the tears pale in comparison to the victory we find in God. And oh…how it was worth it.”
One lifetime to make your unique mark: to go off the beaten path towards the adventure that God has for you.
Time to move out of your safety zone and risk living.
That time is NOW.
