Don't Play it Safe

Scripture: "His armor bearer said to him, "Do all that is in your heart; turn yourself, and here I am with you according to your desire."

Observation: There is a great picture painted here with these verses. The armor bearer was devoted to Jonathan and willing to serve along side of him, regardless of the odds. Just the journey to the camp of the Philistines was dangerous enough, let alone the battle that would await them. It was a crazy plan. A classic suicide mission. It was Jonathan's decision, yet the words of his armor bearer are amazing.

Application: There is something about those words that I can't move past. As I close my eyes, I can almost envision the scene. If I put myself in the place of the armor bearer, I can almost feel his emotions. His stomach must have been tied in knots. His heart racing. His mind would have been nervously calculating the odds against their success. As Jonathan's plan, or lack there of, was laid out before him it would have had to have been tempting to argue or at least state the obvious. But he did not. He simply said, "Do all that is in your heart; turn yourself, and here I am with you according to your desire."

I have a glaring image in my mind of the message that God has for me in this story. If I replace Jonathan with Jesus and the armor bearer with me, the question becomes what are the limits of my faith? At what point am I no longer willing to follow God? It is a tough question and one I would rather not answer. I am afraid I know the answer. Jesus would have to drag me through the crags. He would have to chase down His armor in battle. I am opposed to pain. I hate the threat of loss. I hedge my bets. I play it safe. I live life in a world that is surrounded by things that help cover my losses. I have insurance on everything I own and I am worth more dead than I am alive.

The trouble is that God does not always work that way. In 2 Corinthians 11 Paul describes all that his faith cost him. The list is as long as it is grueling. I do not feel that God has asked anything of me near the level what most men in the Bible faced, yet I struggle to follow. Fear will get the best of me in certain situations and I begin looking for a way out.

Prayer: What a great challenge to me. There lies inside of me the desire to be as faithful to You as Jonathan's armor bearer was to him. When You ask me to follow you into something that is bigger than me; my greatest hope is that my words would be, "here I am with you according to Your desire." The trouble is there also lies inside of me a great desire to play it safe and stay comfortable. I need Your great strength if I am to make the right choice. I pray that you mold me into the person of dedication and obedience that you desire me to be. The ability to live a life of reckless abandonment in following after You is an abilty I can't create on my own. Take my heart; bend it towards you. Take my mind; fill it with Your wisdom and knowledge. Take my soul, center its deepest longings on pursuing Your will. In the heat of the battle, I want to be one step behind You.