We just returned from the county fair. It’s a place that challenges the senses. Where else can you get a whiff of both roasting peanuts and horse sweat, see the chicken roasting pit next to the poultry barn, and hear both the midway huckster and the square dance caller? I’ll admit the element of nostalgia also plays a part in my enthusiasm for the fair, especially the animal barns. Watching a cow get milked, hearing a sheep bleat, and, yes, smelling the hog pens reminds me of growing up on our Iowa farm.

Going to the fair is fun, but it’s also tiring. I think I overdid the sugar intake, what with eating funnel cake, cotton candy and all. Your letter was in today’s mail so I used the reading of it as an excuse to sit down and relax.

I understand your concern that God might call you to do something you don’t want to do, that you’re afraid of doing. My experience is that there is, indeed, risk-taking in being a follower of Jesus Christ.

I saw the winning entry of the tallest cornstalk competition at the fair. I know, we rural folks get excited about seemingly inconsequential things. Anyway, that corn stalk reminds me of the traveling salesman down south who walked by a dilapidated farmhouse where the farmer was sitting on the front porch.

"How’s your corn crop?" asked the salesman.

"Didn’t plant no corn. Thought it might be too dry."

The salesman asked, "How’s your cotton crop?"

"Didn’t plant no cotton," said the farmer. "‘Fraid of boll weevils."

"How’s your potatoes?"

"No potatoes. ‘Fraid of potato bugs."

"Then what did you plant?"

The farmer replied, "Nothin’. Decided to play it safe."

Living a life where you seek to always please God can be risky business. Every Biblical character I can recall who was obedient to God and accomplished something for Him was a person who lived beyond the comfort zone.

The comfort zone is where we want to live. Here the land is predictably flat, and the well-worn paths of habit and routine keep one at a safe distance from risk and sacrifice. But just beyond the comfort zone there waits adventure: God’s adventure for us. It’s largely unchartered wilderness where it seems just about anything could happen. Navigating the narrow ridge that leads to a worthy goal God calls us to often puts us dangerously close to the deep gorge of failure. Then, too, the path is almost always a steep climb upward. We often have to travel at a pace of two steps forward and one step back, like when you climb a sand dune.

Whether to live in our comfort zone or God’s adventure zone is our choice to make. I know from experience, however, that the adventure zone is where we experience God in the deepest ways. It’s not just because we are being obedient to Him; it’s also because we have to be dependent on Him.

The risks of living in the adventure zone have come in a variety of ways for me, and they will for you, too. It may involve something as simple, though difficult, as telling someone you love them or lovingly confronting a friend with the truth. You may come to the conviction that God wants you to get involved in a ministry at church that’s beyond what you feel comfortable doing. Financially giving to God’s work a sacrificial sum and not just a token amount can seem very risky.

The Lord bids us to come and follow Him. His destination for us is not measured in miles, but in personal growth. He’s always calling us to move from who we are toward who He wants us to be. It’s at this point that I depend on a little bit of turtle theology. The turtle never moves ahead until he’s willing to stick his neck out!

A fellow seeker after truth,
Dave