Safe or Significant?

In his talk “Just Courage: Charging the Darkness” (Global Leadership Summit 2008), International Justice Mission (IJM) president Gary Haugen spoke about choices that effective leaders make in the face of difficult tasks. Haugen knew courage amidst difficulties firsthand. IJM rescues the sexually exploited, the enslaved and the oppressed globally. “Dateline NBC” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show” have already featured Haugen and the IJM work.

One of those choices is the decision not to be safe. Being safe and being significant are not one and the same. To be safe is to watch things happen. To be significant is to make it happen. Safety says “Enough.” Significance says “Excel.” Always keep in mind that we serve a God who wants us to be significant, not safe. That’s why C.S. Lewis' “The Chronicles of Narnia” depicted Aslan the lion (a symbol of Christ) as good but not safe. He is, after all, “not a tame lion.” God is more concerned with our character than with our comfort. He is the Lord who would call us to “Launch out into the deep” (Luke 5:4, NKJV). He beckons us to be like Peter to step out of the boat and walk on water. In short, “Follow me” (Matthew 4:19). Obedience is never safe. But it leads to significance.

People walk around life carrying a sign that says, “Business as usual.” But the significant life is not usual. To paraphrase one of my favorite authors, a significant life is outside the realm of the safe, the predictable and the expected. As a church, we can just go through the motions. Busy as bee yet not having any impact at all in our spheres of influence such as our families, our workplace and our community. We can even be devoted but not make a dent at all. We can start being significant by opening our hearts to people, going beyond the “Kumusta?” (“How are you?") and really listening to the answers. We can go out of our safe zone and start making a difference in others by opening up our schedule to join a small group. We can even host it in our homes. We can invite people to our church. Then, we can invest time in following them up. If we are too busy for people, then we are really too busy. Getting involved with people is not safe. But it’s significant.

Brethren, are we safe or significant?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“Ubus-ubos Biyaya, Bukas Nakatunganga”

Image
That’s what my mother always told us when we were still kids. (Translation: “You spend everything today, you will have nothing tomorrow.” ) Image source: So, What's New ? Dionie did just that. Last April 2008, he won PHP14,125,032 in the Lotto 6/42 draw. Excitedly, he “lived the life of a millionaire, something he had been longing to experience. He lived in a P4-million house in a posh subdivision, drove around in a sports utility vehicle [which he bought the very same day he claimed his prize] , and gave goodwill money, ranging P1,000 to P 850,000, to relatives and friends. He also gambled daily, womanized, and went on regular drinking sprees.” (Source: Manila Bulletin ) He estimated that he squandered a minimum of P100,000 almost every day. He also lent money even to people he did not really know. “I just gave them and told them not to pay me back.” (Ibid) His bank had to issue him a special card so he can withdraw huge amounts of money quickly from the automated teller m
Read more

God Knows Judas Not Pay

In the National Geographic Magazine (May 2006 issue), in its cover story, The Judas Gospel , Professor Eliane Pagels of Princeton University claimed that the so-called gospel of Judas “ changes the history of early Christianity. ” Even UP Professor Randy David took notice of the Judas Gospel: “Strictly from a sociological standpoint, I think the discovery of the Gospel of Judas makes Christianity a far more interesting religion than what centuries of metaphysical theology has made of it.” (A Gospel for the Postmodern, Phil. Daily Inquirer, April 16, 2006) That’s why I spoke in our Young Pro Fellowship a few days ago on God Knows Judas Not Pay (A Biblical Response on the Judas Gospel). I believe opportunities like this hype on the Judas Gospel or the Da Vinci Code opens a door for us to share the true Gospel. For those who did not attend last Thursday, let me share briefly why we reject the Judas gospel. I came up with the acronym J-U-D-A-S. J udas was portrayed as a traitor in the Bibl
Read more

“Don’t drink the Kool-Aid!”

Image
Forty years ago, this expression became known as a description of blind obedience.   Source: Los Angeles Times On November 18, 1978, members of Peoples Temple, a cult group in Guyana, drank Kool-Aid drink laced with cyanide to commit a mass suicide “at the behest of their charismatic but paranoid leader, Jim Jones”. [1] According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica , “The death toll exceeded 900, including some 300 age 17 and under, making the incident one of the largest mass deaths in American history. ”  [2]  What made those people submit to such atrocity? According to Stella Morabito, a senior contributor to The Federalist online magazine, Peoples Temple is “Exhibit A… [of]  the dangers of the cult mindset or how vulnerable all people are to cult tactics.”  [3] She pointed out that, Coercive persuasion has immense power to shape and twist the human mind.  …[Jones’] utopian preaching of a humane world in which all lived happily in harmony resonated with the
Read more