Risk, Danger, and Adventure

My mother-in-law visited us here in Homewood for a few days in the middle of last week.  It was good timing, because on Tuesday night Julie and I were both invited to a community meeting in Homewood and she was here to watch our girls so we could go to the meeting together.  When we arrived home from the meeting, we of course asked how the evening went.  She said, "Your daughters were wonderful!  We had a great time.  After I put them to bed, though, I noticed that there was something going on outside.  I opened the door to the back porch to see sirens and police lights and a helicopter flying over your house shining a light all around your neighborhood."  It turns out that a man had been shot in the back on the street next to our house, and police had closed that street off to search for a suspect and provide medical care for the victim.  By the time we arrived home, the police tape was still up but the scene had been cleared.  I told her, "That's crazy... very close to our house!"  I needed to go check in with one of my mentees that night, so I grabbed my keys from the kitchen counter and said, "I'm glad you guys are OK.  I'm heading out.  I'll be back in a little while."  She had a shocked look on her face, and she said, "Are you going out right now?  It's dangerouse out there!"  In that moment, I had the urge to crack a smile at her and say something matter-of-fact like, "Danger?  Danger is my middle name."  Although I didn't say that particular phrase, I did crack a half-smile and say to her, "If it's dangerous out there, then that's exactly where God wants me to be right now.  There's no safer place to be than at the center of God's will."  I reassured her that I would be fine as I closed the door, and I walked off into the cool September night in Homewood.  As I went about God's work in Homework that night, something in me felt like God was right there by my side the whole time.  My actions and words that evening had purpose because I remained obedient to God's call on my life to go into places where most people do not want to go.

I arrived back home safely that night, got a short night of sleep, and then the next morning I went to a prayer effort for the city of Pittsburgh that had been organized by some friends of mine who are looking for ways to get Christians involved and engaged in the transformation of the people and places in Pittsburgh.  Several long-time, experienced urban ministry practitioners were there at that meeting to pray for the troubled youth and broken systems in our city.  There were also several businessmen and suburban Christians at the prayer meeting who were taking some of their first steps toward being involved as Christians in reaching the lost in dark places in the city.  For many of these business-minded and suburban brothers of mine in Christ, they are starting to be obedient to Christ's call to enter into the pain and brokenness of our city through relationships and prayer and mobilization of the body of Christ to reach to most vulnerable people in Pittsburgh.  For some of them, they feel like this first step of prayer and involvement in leading the charge of Christians to be involved in the city is dangerous and radical.  The ideology of downward mobility and engagement by Christians with broken systems and hurting people runs counter to the American Dream that many people have bought into.  It feels dangerous to break out of line with the status quo.  It can be quite an adventure.

I am sharing these examples to illustrate something that is very important for Christian men.  God calls each of us to be amazing, loving husbands to our wives.  He calls each of us to love our children well, and to model for them in every way what a godly man looks like.  But beyond our families, God calls all men to live out a transcendent purpose for him that is often dangerous and full of adventure.  When I went out into the night on the same evening that a man had just been shot 50 yards from my house in Homewood, I was taking a risk.  It was dangerous (my mother-in-law was right).  But, passivity is far more dangerous for us as men.  When those men gathered to pray and plan strategies for reaching hurting people in the inner city of Pittsburgh early on Wednesday morning, they were planning something subversive to what the enemy has planned for Pittsburgh.  The kingdom of God is subversive, and it is dangerous.  It may even cost some of us our lives.  But God calls each of us to take risks, to reach people for his sake.  Are we willing to give up control and safety in exchange for danger and adventure?

John Eldredge writes, "Life is not a problem to be solved; it is an adventure to be lived.  That's the nature of it and has been since the beginning when God set the dangerous stage for his high-stakes drama and called the whole wild enterprise good.  He rigged the world in such a way that it only works when we embrace risk as the theme of our lives, which is to say, only when we live by faith.  A man just won't be happy until he's got adventure in his work, in his love and in his spiritual life."

So true.  So what will we do with God's call to embrace risk and danger and adventure in our lives?  Will we double our efforts at trying to control everything when things don't go our way?  God may call some of us to work with inner city kids.  God may call some of us to make a difference in the marketplace, which may be full of sharks dressed in suits.  Some of us may be called to the danger of politics, or any of the other systems in society that evil may have infiltrated.  This is a choice for men almost every single day of our lives.  Will we take risks, or play it safe?  Life is a risky, dangerous adventure.  But God is with us.  Let's live like that every day.