Not Safe

Three years ago, I witnessed a horrible tragedy that caused the death of a friend.  The incident replayed over and over in my head in those dark days afterwards and I pleaded to God saying, “If this is how life is – ending in a twisted moment where one human attacks another and it is over in an instant, I don’t want to live safe anymore.  I don’t want to make decisions that are predictable or expected.  I want to live a different life – a life where I’m stepping out into what you want, God.  Into what I cannot see or understand – a dangerous, jumping off a cliff kind of life for you.”  I was terrified of what I had just seen, but this prayer was definitely the most dangerous prayer I had ever prayed. 

It was a prayer of despair and I didn’t fully realize it then, but it changed my mind – how I thought about everything; transformed how I wanted to live.  I remember later that day at home feeling frozen, unsure of how to move forward, what direction to take. 

I remember praying again, “God, I am terrified to pray this, but please take this life and this fear and I will do whatever you ask.  I don’t know how and why and when, but I will do it.”  I didn’t know if I could follow through, but I knew that God was with me.

Months later, I left my job under circumstances I never could have predicted without financial plans to make that reality work.  For the first time, I was living that “unsafe” life.  I wrote here about free falling.

As I look back three years later, I see that God has allowed me to “jump off my cliff”.  I have a new, calm rhythm to my life.  While from the outside, it looks ordinary, quiet, and predictable.  Back then, today’s reality was unthinkable, scary, undoable. 

 

I’m grateful for that “unsafe” prayer that I prayed.  I believe it opened a door for God to work in my life in ways I never imagined possible.  I am humbled and honored that God brought me to this place. 

   

What “dangerous” prayer have you prayed and how did God change your life because of it?