I believe it was John Wimber who used to say that “faith” is spelled “r-i-s-k.” Life without risk requires no faith. A life that truly attempts to emulate the life of Christ is full of risk. I know couples and individuals who live in the most dangerous regions of the world to share the gospel with radical Muslims. I know couples and individuals who lead underground house churches in China and North Korea who face the real possibility of beatings and imprisonment every day.
These are followers of Jesus who depend entirely on the power and protection of heaven for their ministries and these are also the followers who see God do amazing things on a regular basis – healings, dramatic and improbable conversions, miraculous provision, words of knowledge, miraculous protection, and so on. If you attend a church that is involved in world missions at any level you have heard similar stories.
As you heard those stories you probably applauded these great men and women of faith but thought that such a life of risk and miracles was beyond you. You may have thought that you would love to see the power of God manifested in such ways but assume such miracles are reserved for missionaries in third world countries. Or, perhaps, a bit of cynicism deep in your heart questioned whether these “Acts-like” moves of God actually happen anywhere anymore. After all, you have never seen such things with your own eyes.
Here is the thing. The economy of heaven is abundant but not wasteful. The power of God is not poured out where it is not needed and it is not needed where there is no risk. I will also tell you that “risk” comes in many forms for believers and not just in third world nations. Believing God and acting on that belief is risky even in America. We typically don’t risk death or imprisonment (although that seems to be on our horizon) but we do risk rejection, embarrassment, and disappointment when we pray for miracles.
Christianity that believes our faith is simply about living moral lives, fatalistically accepting the ebb and flow of life on a fallen world, and first experiencing the power of God at the resurrection takes no faith beyond believing that Jesus died for our sins. A greater and more biblical level of faith is required when you begin to ask for miracles and even more when you begin to participate in those miracles.
Even in America, acting in faith involves risk. Sharing your faith with a close friend or family member risks rejection and damaging the relationship. Sharing your faith with a stranger also risks rejection and ridicule or suddenly feeling the responsibility of helping a new Christian grow and deal with all the baggage.
Praying for actual miracles in the realm of healing, broken marriages, children lost to addictions, and provision risks disappointment. What if the person you prayed for isn’t healed? What if the marriage isn’t saved? What if your child continues living on the street fighting addiction? How do you handle that? What do you think about God and his promises regarding prayer? What do you think about your own faith and your own relationship with God?
When you step out in faith there is risk and some of the risk is found in your own disappointment if you don’t see your prayers answered as you anticipated. Then like Jacob, you have to wrestle with God, your faith, and your theology. Do you keep on praying for supernatural healing even after your loved one dies? Do you keep praying for troubled marriages even though one still ended in divorce? Do you keep trying to believe God for your child? Faith says, “yes,” even in the face of past disappointment.
If you are a believer who only expects the ordinary and only prays for the ordinary you will rarely face disappointment or a crisis of faith. You will rarely wrestle with your understanding of God. But stepping out and asking for the extraordinary like praying for supernatural healing in a hospital room where everyone else is praying for an easy passing is risky. But that is what faith does and that is when God shows up in supernatural ways – even in America.
I believe the reason we don’t see the miraculous move of God in America as we do in third world nations is that we often have been trained not to ask for miracles so we “have not because we ask not.” Sometimes it is because we trust in science and medicine rather than the God who created the very things science has not yet understood. We often pray as if God’s ability can only match what science and medicine can do in the natural and so we only ask God to do what science and medicine can do without him. Sometimes we fail to ask because we don’t want to seem extreme or weird to our religious friends.
God does not pour out power when his people make no demand on that power. The demand comes when they ask for the impossible in the name of Jesus. If you want to see God move in amazing ways, you must place yourself in risky positions where nothing happens unless God shows up. At some point, the joy of being willing to risk will overwhelm the fear that was once attached to that risk. As go further into deep water with Jesus, we will see greater and greater things. So…swallow hard and ask big. It is absolutely God’s will for your life.
