“Safe?” …. Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

Oh how we cling to safety. Recently I have been thinking on what it is to be called to a life with Christ, and this concept of “a safe” Christian life keeps coming up.  I don’t think this means that as Christians we are all called to go out into places with dangerous or violent persecution. However, to live in Christ means to die to this world’s trappings. This might seem like one of those concepts that we hear time and time again, but if not embraced and explored, it can lead us into a vane cycle of whitewashing rather than restoration.

So what sort of danger or lack of safety could living in Christ cost? Jesus spoke about how there are two paths in life. (Matthew 7:13) The path that leads to destruction is wide and easy to follow. Broad enough to accommodate all and any baggage we would like to take with us. The narrow path is the one that leads to life. It’s good, but it comes at a price; His LOVE and our SIN (baggage). Our pastor illustrated this by imagining a person trying to go down a narrow hallway carrying two backpacks, and two suitcases all full of old and broken things. In order for the person to go through, they must let go of these bags.  This is where the danger lays.

Letting go of these bags is different for all of us. This can mean a private habit, or even losing your entire family. You could lose your position in your community, it could cost a position at a job, it could cost  losing respect from peers, ridicule, and yes even death. It’s dangerous to risk these comforts when it’s so easy to simply fade into them. It’s dangerous to resist the seduction of temporary safety. It would have been easier for the Christians living in the Third Reich to embrace Nazi ideology; especially after the German State Church began promoting Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement. Instead, these bold Christians stood against evil and abandoned safety in comfort. In the same way, it would be easier to indulge in harmful gossip against a peer rather than oppose.

We are called to be the salt and light of the world. Salt is nothing but fragments of rocks if not for its taste and properties that make it a mineral. Just as light holds no purpose if it itself fades into the night. We are not called to fade into comfort, but boldly step into open waters with Christ as our light, in Faith.

Peter had to take the risk of drowning when Jesus told him to step off of the boat. In the middle of a storm, Jesus’ disciples were being tossed by violent waves in a small boat. In the midst of the storm, they saw Jesus walking among the waves. Naturally, they were frightened. Jesus called out to them, and Peter responded. Jesus told him to have faith and step out into the storm with him. Peter walked with Jesus among the waves, yet started to sink once he lost sight of who he was walking with and began focusing on the waves.

Is he safe? No, he is not safe….but he is good. He is the KING I tell you.