risks on Adventure

Gandalf: I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.  Bilbo: I should think so—in these parts! We are plain, quiet folk and have n...

Heavenly Father, our Savior told us, "Those who try to gain their own life will lose it; but those who lose their life for My sake will gain it." These are hard words. We confess that we oft...

Helen Keller, who lost both her sight and hearing in childhood but became a renowned activist and author, said that there is no such thing as a secure life. “It does not exist in nature.… Life is eith...

Do one thing every day that scares you.

The dangers of life are infinite, and among them is safety.

The dangers and hardships for the faithful are real indeed. Truth is tested and faith is confirmed not in idle speculation but in the crucible of adversity. Those who wish to find a more vibrant relig...

If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.

Faith is the willingness to risk anything on God.

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

Risk, Salvation, and the Fullness of Time Pharaoh’s daughter took a huge risk to raise and protect the child of a Hebrew slave, a child who should have been killed because of her father’s decree. Tha...

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

Fear and growth go together like macaroni and cheese. It’s a package deal. The decision to grow always involves a choice between risk and comfort. This means that to be a follower of Jesus you must re...

Unless there is an element of risk in our exploits for God, there is no need for faith.

Imagine being so committed to going to the mission field that you bought a one-way ticket to your destination and packed your worldly goods in a coffin, knowing you’d never come home. That is what A. ...

When people cast fear to the wind and spend themselves and risk their lives and fortune in the cause of God's truth, and in love for other people, then God is revealed for who He really is: infini...

A decade ago I spent an unforgettable week in the Galapagos Islands. This archipelago of islands off the coast of Ecuador hasn’t changed much since Charles Darwin sailed there on trheHMS Beagle in Dec...

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.

The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision.

In Four Quartets , T. S. Eliot writes that “any action is a step to the block.” He means that our actions always draw us closer to death, and in that sense every action we take is a wager of our ...

If we want the advantages of love, then we must be willing to take the risks of love. And that requires vulnerability. Of course, we can refuse this path and trod another one devoid of openness. But t...

The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wo...

If we walk away from risk to keep ourselves safe, we will waste our lives.

Esther. As a Jewish woman who won an unusual beauty contest to become Xerxes’ queen (see Esther 2:2–17), Esther would learn that God’s plans can include risk—and an opportunity to show courage. The ki...

As much as we laugh at it, trying to keep kids safe, avoiding failing or falling, has its own consequences. My friend, Dr. Tim Ellmore says that the removal of monkey bars on playgrounds is perhaps th...

In her book Family Ministry, Diana Garland relates the following account by R.L. Honeycutt on the origin of the Irish expression “Chancing one’s arm”: On display in St. Patrick’s cathedral in Dublin...

When Hernán Cortés landed in Mexico with under 700 men, the indigenous population numbered about five million, a ratio of about 7,500 to 1. Rather than keep his lines of escape open, Cortés made the r...

If he have faith, the believer cannot be restrained. He betrays himself. He breaks out. He confesses and teaches this gospel to the people at the risk of life itself.

… Larry Laudan, a philosopher of science, has spent the last decade studying risk-management. He writes of how we live in a society so fear-driven that we suffer from what he calls risk-lock – a condi...

Preaching Commentary Risk, Salvation, and the Fullness of Time Pharaoh’s daughter took a huge risk to raise and protect the child of a Hebrew slave, a child who should have been killed because of h...

I preached my first sermon at National Community Church on January 14, 1996. The only thing I remember about that message is my opening illustration. I can’t remember the original source, but I think ...