Risk (an answer to a question)

"How often would you say you do something uncomfortable, scary or just against your general wants and needs because it is what God is asking you to do?" -Dave Snow aka Grace is the Thing

hmm

I wonder sometimes if im the only one that answers back to you on these things but anyway the word that comes to mind when you ask this is "Risk"
No not the board game, though i happen to like it (and by the way, future risk night soon?) But i once wrote a blog, when we first started doing the well that was just at the front of me starting to explore what God was doing in our group and in my own life. It was short and simple and to the point it said

Ive realized that I've never taken a risk in my life

Because everything has seemed to be a natural conclusion. Looking from the outside, my life might look a little risky. Giving up a schollarship to a prestigious school to settle in and do ministry, going to school for a degree in Christian studies, when the church I work at wont even hire me. Trusting God that He wants me in ministry, even though theres so much on my plate with work and stuff (read girl-friend).

Going into student venture wasnt a risk. It was just an extention of what i was already doing. Even starting the well didnt feel like a risk, just a conclusion of what God had already been teaching us about community and dicipleship and health. Even asking Sarah out had few risks, I knew she already wanted to, and so did I, just the next step in our relationship. 

The only risk I can think of
Is putting who I really am out on the line for people to see. 

Cause see the really risky thing that we can do is to make ourselves vulnerable before other people and ultimatly before God. Because I, like a lot of other people have an exterior persona that I present to the world and a private one which few, if any get to see. Few of us are lucky enough to have friends that are willing to support us in such a way that we might feel its okay to let just a bit of that inner person out, to "test the waters" and the more we let out, and the more we are accepted because of who we really are, the more our exterior persona becomes like our inner person. As this starts to happen we become less and less worried about what people who see this inner man might think because we have this group of support to fall back on where we know that we are Okay and accepted for who we are.

Ahh the risk in being true to ourselves. In front of other people. 

Mine started in my writing. I wasnt writing for anyone else, just me, and for my own thoughts and my own freedom. And then I started putting stuff online and the responses I got were largely along the lines of "Did you really write this? Is this what's going on in your head? Where is this Adam the rest of the time" Hes scared of getting shot down and hurt, thats where he was. 

But you cant run a ministry, or have real friends, or a girlfriend or even just live well if you are always putting on this mask, this out-in-front persona. Cause it will eventually kill you. It will. You will wake up one day in a cubical wondering what happened to your life and why it feels like it has passed you by and why you never lived any of your dreams. This will be a big part of it. Because you went along with everybody elses expectation of yourself, with you desperatly trying to conform to thier image of your persona. 

I guess it was not as much of a risk as i thought. Be real or die. The risk of being real was nothing compaired to losing who I am, and who God created me to be. 

And heres the deal: even if you find no-one inthis life who supports you as you really are, which I find hard to belive, but just supposing there was not one person who got you and was joyful with you being you, then remember that you were not a random conglomeration of ammino acids form in your mothers womb, but rather that you were crafted by the hands of the maker, crafted with desires and hopes and personallity that He abosulutely loves and wants for you enjoy as well. 

A big thank you to those who take me as I am
And encourage the things that God has placed in me.