Five Minute Friday {SAFE}

Linking up with Kate Motaung at Five Minute Friday where a group of writers free write for five minutes with no revisions, no corrections, no edits. This week's word, SAFE

Setting the timer, Go:

When I think of the word safe, it describes the way I’ve lived my entire Christian life.  I haven’t taken a risk, not really.  I go to the prescribed place to sit in the pew and listen to the Word preached, talk with some people who look just like me for the most part and go home.  I live in a neighborhood that is diverse but I come and go back and forth from my car to my house in the safest way possible.  I lock doors and keep to myself in order to be “safe”.

This has been a conviction to my heart recently.  I don’t want to live “safe”.  I want to be dangerous for the kingdom of Jesus.  But what does that look like.  How do I move forward into places that don’t feel “safe”.  How do I befriend and connect with the people in my neighborhood that others would consider to be UNsafe.

I say I want to live the way Jesus lived but I don’t actually do it most of the time.  My every day looks pretty much the same as all the people I rub shoulders with on a regular basis.

What would it look like to really trust God with myself, with my time, with my money.  What would it look like if I actually took a risk and walked into the life of someone who wasn’t just like me.  

I know in my head Holy Spirit would meet me there, would enter into that place and time.  Oh that I would begin to live in a way that resembled Jesus more and more.

Oh that I would move from desiring safety to desiring more of Jesus, more of the way he lived and moved while he walked the same earth I’m walking today.  

That I would live reckless abandoned to his love, knowing I am loved and giving that love away to the people who would never walk into my local church.

STOP.

The picture above is part of a journal entry from March 2016. God has moved in my heart over and over this past year to leave the comfort and safety of religious practices and move into relationship with people who look and live differently. I don't do this perfectly or completely but the small changes I'm making as Holy Spirit prompts my heart will add up to something different in a year or two or ten. God works in the small everyday steps to take us from one place to another. He is ordering my steps and I will continue to follow Him.

Are you taking risks or living a safe and comfortable American Dream Gospel life? I'd love to hear how God is moving your heart from safety and comfort into the world around you that might seem unsafe.