Jump

“Ultimately, Jesus was calling to to abandon themselves. They were leaving certainty for uncertainty, safety for danger, self-preservation to self-denunciation.”

 - Radical by David Platt

Oh how we as Americans love certainty. Studies have shown that political conservatives put a higher value on steadiness, on unchanging certainty, than political liberals do. Evangelicals tend towards political conservatism. (Not saying that there are not evangelicals on all ends of the political spectrum. Case in point right here.)

We love us some certainty.

We send our kids on ministry trips, but we like to know ahead of time whether or not they will be getting showers and how often to expect a text home from Bobby to let us know that he hasn't been abducted by monkeys.

We trust God with a tithe of our money, but we like to know that the rest of it fits into nice neat budget boxes. (I literally heard a four-year-old I was babysitting singing a song to herself in that little kid way, where they just make up the words as they go. It was a song about Dave Ramsey.)

Certainty isn't necessarily a bad thing. Until it becomes an idol. Until we start waiting to move, waiting for God to erase all of the uncertainty, all of the danger, and all of the giving up of ourselves, waiting for an open door the size of a small tank.

Because, sometimes, God closes those huge doors and opens up a second story window instead.

And then He tells us to jump.

And we have to give up all of our certainty and safety and self preservation and cling to the hope that the one who holds the universe will catch us before we fall.