Archives For Risk

What My Train Set Taught Me About Transcendence

January 2, 2013 — 38 Comments

My kids and I used to have a small Lionel train set in a corner of my tool room. Ten years ago we dismantled the small set with dreams of a bigger and better train set in a newly created basement room called the Train Room.

We dreamed of the perfect train layout with switches, freight yards, and realistic scenery; with a moving crane, sawmill, draw-bridge, and coal dump; and with cities, tunnels, mountains, and farms. It would fill the new 15 by 18 foot Train Room.

Our quest for perfection derailed us. We dreamt of glory, and for ten years we did nothing. We ran out of steam. The Train Room became the junk room, a closet in which to hide things that belonged nowhere else.

Dad - train setIt also stored the dusty train set that we dismantled ten years ago.

The day before Christmas, my kids suggested we re-assemble the train set in the new Train Room. We cleared the “closet” out (never mind where all that junk went), we put the table up, we rewired the accessories, and we set the trains back on track once again.

It was a blast. Doing something adequately was far better than doing nothing perfectly.

Continue Reading…

In Beliefs of the Heart, Calling Driven church, Christianity, Desire, Getting glory, Hearing God, Parable of the Talents, Pursuing an Inner Life, Risk , , , , , ,
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Avoiding Avoidance

March 20, 2012 — 7 Comments

Deathbed advice offers impact which no other advice provides.

My father died of cancer sixteen years ago. A few weeks before his death, knowing he would die soon, my father offered me advice.

As a long term pastor, my father counseled hundreds of men and women. He said that many of them lived their lives being controlled by their parents. They spent their lives avoiding their parents’ bad behavior.

My father was not an angel; he had an anger problem. He lost his temper over little events, like when he lost his keys (which he seemed to lose all the time!). He was concerned that his kids might waste their lives trying to avoid his anger issue. He advised me instead to spend my energy imitating the good things I saw in my parents and teachers and friends.

Then he said this: “If you spend your life trying not to be somebody you will spend your life not being somebody.”

We will never become ourselves by running from; we will only become our true selves by running to. If we turn our inner life into a vacuum—always removing things—our inner life will never become a thing of substance. It will always be empty. Continue Reading…

In Getting glory, God's pursuit of our heart, Pursuing an Inner Life, Risk, Significance, What does it mean to believe? , , , ,
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Pursuing an Inner Life

March 13, 2012 — 16 Comments

The two pictures below show Mt. St. Helens. One was taken on May 17, 1980, and the other was taken several days later.

Beneath the calm exterior of a majestic mountain boiled an inner life that would erupt with 20,000 times more power than the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

Each of us has an inner and an outer life. We sense this intuitively. We say of others, “They don’t know me, the true me.” A popular book on the Myers Briggs personality test is entitled, Please Understand Me.

While we vaguely sense an inner self, we primarily invest in our outer life. We dedicate hours in running on treadmills; we devour the latest tabloid diet; we pour out our hearts on career advancement; we spend hours in shopping for shoes or for shotguns.

These external activities are like mowing the lawn of Mt. St. Helens, on May 17, 1980.

Our truest self is our inner self. We are the same person the day before we are fired as the day after. A friend recently lost most of her right arm in a freak accident, but she lost not a single strand of hair of who she truly is.

The person we are inside is our truest person. But we’ve barely begun to know that person because we fail to know our inner life. And we certainly don’t invest in it. Continue Reading…

In Glory, God's Love, Prayer, Pursuing an Inner Life, Risk, Significance , , , ,
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Risk 3: Where do we rest our hearts?

August 12, 2011 — 12 Comments

My son David recently married “the girl next door” (almost literally), and the reception was at our house. The day before the wedding, my sons and I took an old porch swing from the barn and hung it from a large branch. A few days after the wedding, the branch broke and smashed the swing. The branch had looked solid, but it was rotten.

I am so grateful no one was resting on the swing when that branch broke.

While no one was hurt, the smashed swing caused me consider that one of the greatest risks of all may be where we rest our hearts.

Some of us find rest in success or career. When work goes well, our hearts find peace. But jobs are fragile branches. They cannot bear the weight of our lives.

Some of us find rest in family. When our kids are good or when our spouse loves us, our hearts find peace. But families are fragile branches. Our spouse may die (in fact, will die), and our children will make mistakes, and they too may suffer grave illness or death.

Some of us find rest in ministry. When our talks are loved and our blogs are read and people are converted, our hearts find peace. But ministry is a fragile branch. We can do everything right and not see fruit. Jesus did everything perfectly, and he was murdered.

Jeremiah 17:7 says: Blessed are they who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.

I think this verse says it is not enough to merely trust in the Lord. If we stop there, it can in fact be a huge mistake. Continue Reading…

In Getting glory, God's pursuit of our heart, Growing in intimacy with God, Identity, Risk, What does it mean to believe? , , , ,
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Risk 2: The Deep Heart Nature of Risk

July 20, 2011 — 4 Comments

Some people seem naturally courageous, like their DNA was infused with risk at birth. And others seem born afraid of their shadows. Is this true? Are the courageous always courageous, and are the rest of us really scaredy cats?

Every person we meet has a deep, heart-level, fear; and at times fear paralyzes us.

What hope—and what help—do we have?

See also:

In God's Love, God's view of us, Risk, What does it mean to believe? , , , , ,
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Risk 1: The Inescapable Nature of Risk

June 14, 2011 — 8 Comments

Risk is an inevitable element of life. We are daily bombarded by the need to make decisions, and many of these decisions involve risk. A few of us are huge risk takers but most of us prefer safety.

We avoid risk by making safe decisions. Or do we? Might the very nature of safe decisions create a greater risk than we ever imagined?

See also:

In Beliefs, Calling, Glory, Risk, Significance , , , ,
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