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?
