Graphic: MarthaG.Brady

I remember the many years I tried to live a safe life. I was careful. I didn’t want to make mistakes. I didn’t like having to suffer the embarrassment of making mistakes or being wrong. The habit started very early in life. By the time I became an adult, it was well intrenched in my habit patterns.

Early in adulthood, I learned that GOD doesn’t call us to live safe lives. It was quite a shock. He doesn’t call us to please people. There are often times when people will misunderstand our motives, assume the worst about us, but does that mean we are supposed to keep all of them happy, second-guessing what they could think about us?  STOP

Jesus didn’t come to live a safe life…or to have us live safe lives!

That isn’t how He lived. Think of all the people who misunderstood Him and His motives! Often, His comments invited misunderstanding. But that didn’t keep Him from going about His Father’s business. He didn’t waste His time worrying about what others thought about Him. In a real sense, that was their problem. He spoke truth, sometimes spoken in ways that weren’t easily understood, but truth just the same. He didn’t beg them to understand or defend Himself. He lived His life according to the Father’s will.

Of course, we don’t obey perfectly as He did. We fail. We sin. Our motives are never pure. We often need to apologize and seek reconciliation in our relationships. But we don’t need to live safe lives or apologetically. We need to live confidently in Christ realizing we will fail at times. We need to live vulnerably, moving toward those who aren’t easy to love…as He did.

Yes, we will fail and mess up plenty. We will even sin on purpose! But we will have a happier and more fulfilling life if we don’t live safely, protecting ourselves all the time…allowing GOD to protect and care for us as He sees fit.

And as he reclined at table in his house,
many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples,
for there were many who followed him.
And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw
that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors,
said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 
And when Jesus heard it, he said to them,
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Mark 2:15-17