Taking Risks

Life is a hectic interlude in an otherwise peaceful non-existence. Before the universe was formed, God designed us each a totally separate person (John 1, Psalms 139).

Everything we do in living is a risk. The parent learns early that everything about a child is taking a risk. You lay a baby in his bed and there is a risk that the baby will never awaken (SIDS). There is always a chance of choking on food regardless of age. Every time you ride in a vehicle on a public highway, you risk someone coming from the opposite direction who may have a tire failure and you can be killed in a terrible crash. Every time you get on an airplane and you go up 30,000 ft in the air, there is a chance of an idiot pilot (such as those who went 150 miles past their destination) or, a terrorist bomb. When you take a tablet, there is always a possibility that someone at the pharmacy could not read the doctor's poor writing, that someone at the drug manufacturing company made a mistake or there could be a severe chemical reaction with other chemicals in your body. You put on your socks in the morning, but a funeral director may take them off at night. Your great consolation is knowing that the very One who designed your body, the very One who designed every snowflake that has ever fallen, the very One who designed the iridial flex in the iris of your eye, or your fingerprints, that are different completely from the flex or fingerprints of any of the other billions of people who have lived on the Earth, the greatest artist, God Himself.

One of my friends, with degrees in music, won a national piano contest in this country and went all the way to Europe for the international finals. After arriving in Europe, at his destination, he would not take the risk of failure and withdrew from the competition. While in the military, I was selected to be the commander of the hospital battalion (the enlisted personnel assigned to the large army hospital). I was a medical officer and knew nothing about the military parameters and decorum of inspections, etc. But, I took the risk of doing the job because I knew that if others could do it, so could I. The very essence of taking risks, of not being afraid to step out, is essential in every walk of life. The test of a man is not what he does when everything goes right but how he handles things when everything goes wrong.

The idea I must get across to every disabled person is that God, in His omnipotent sovereignty, has selected you, or me, to show others that life goes on in spite of handicap. A blind person would never walk again if he only thought about falling. Any student would never succeed if they only thought about failure. Remember, Erma Bombeck said, “Don't confuse success with celebrity; remember Madonna and Helen Keller”. Helen Keller, born deaf and blind, said, "I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble."

Life involves just two concerns, the temporal and the eternal. Temporal matters have a way of fading away. Things that were important to us in youth become much less important with age.

If you ask the average young person what he wants to accomplish in life he will usually say, “To make lots of money”. A good name is rather to be chosen than silver and gold (Proverbs 21:6). One of my father's cousins, cousin Will, was a large land owner. He did not have a son to go to the war, but during WWII, he made the statement that if the war lasted long enough he could wallpaper all his barns with $20 bills (which 60 years ago was a lot of money). I remember accompanying my father when he visited him before he died. He was laying in his bed in his large, nice home. I would be willing to bet much money that a few weeks later, in his casket, his hands were empty. This brings me to the eternal. The only thing really worthwhile in our life is the eternal. We all leave with empty hands but we can know that we have the eternal security of eternal life. Fourteen times, in the first Epistle of John we are told that we can “know” that the risk has been removed, that the eternal, not the temporal, risk of this world have been settled.

In traveling the world, every continent (passport stamped in 157 countries) and both poles, there was always the risk of an airplane crash or of my falling into an hole on some remote street in a third world country. I could not see what I was eating. Often, there was a chance that a snake, or spider, or some other deadly varmint had come into my room which I could not see. I well remember, in Bhutan, a kingdom which had no electricity, large rats were running around in the best hotel there. I could not see them but I could hear them. Of course, in my long travel and risk taking business life, I could have sat around and done nothing. I can afford to be waited on but I choose to take the risk every day of preparing my own food, walking around electrical problems, even walking on streets where there are crazy people who would have as soon hit me in the head for anything in my pockets as to take the next breath. But life, healthy or handicapped, is just a vapor (John 4:14). And death can be just around the corner.

I try to be an optimist, particularly around young couples with children. I can only imagine a young couple's thoughts when they think of the risks involved in the rearing of children during the problems of today's economy, crime and family value pollution. Take the risk of life's challenges regardless of age, regardless of economy, regardless of security. Learn this, “Trust in God”. He has told us, he will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).