In his book Don’t Waste Your Life John Piper has a chapter called “Risk is Right”. He explains that over and over again in the Bible it’s the men and women willing to take risks that God uses for amazing things (Daniel, Abraham, Esther, Paul). Why? I don’t know. Maybe it’s because these are the ones who, in stepping out, showed that they were fully dependent on God in all things. When you come to the end of yourself and you have nothing else but to rely on him, he shows up. And in those scenarios he gets the glory, not us.

Risk means there is something real to lose though. This weekend we saw that being a Christian in Lybia comes with a risk. ISIS videotaped themselves beheading and shooting dozens of Ethiopian Christians on a shoreline. As their blood fills the ocean water a masked man looks to the camera and says “You will not have safety, even in your dreams, until you accept Islam,” speaking English with an American accent. “To the nation of the cross: We are back again.”

Following Jesus is not for the faint of heart. It comes with a risk. And like these men, the reward is not always something we see on this earth or in our worldy definitions of payback. It doesn’t always mean your church will grow, or your marriage will instantly be better, or your bank account full if you ‘walk out in faith’ – I have sat with enough church planters who stepped out in faith, and after years and years have only a handful of people, feel burned out and disappointed, to know this is true.

But, of course, these definitions of ‘success’ are not what I mean by God ‘shows up.’ In their tears and fears and doubts of calling God is showing up. To them, and for them, and they will never be the same. That earthly pain whether emotional or, for the men in Libya, physical, is the way to glory. It is not something other than. “When you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”

Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them…When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me” (John 21:19-21)

We all risk when we have kids, take a new job, move to a town or city we’ve never been to. Start dating again. Marry. Start a new thing. But over and over again, I am convinced that risk is worth it. Risk is right. Risk is good.

It means we may lose now and again, or, from an earthly perspective we may lose everything, but the risk itself changes the landscape. Of our lives, and the lives of those around us. And that is something.

If Daniel had died in that lions den, would it have been a fail? I know the king sees his vindication and believes in the God of Israel, but I wonder, even if he had walked up to the pit and seen nothing but Daniel’s eaten up body, whether he would have been any less inspired to worship the God Daniel died for. When you read the story, he’s already leaning that way, before Daniel goes in the pit. Why?

Because his heart is melted by a life sold out by a different philosophy than the world has to offer: a life that says To live is Christ, to die is gain.

And that’s why risk is right.