The Idol of Safety vs the God of Safety

Years ago my sister was a high school AP Political Science teacher. After 9/11 she asked her supposedly intelligent, thoughtful students this question: “Would you rather be safe or free?” Every single one of them said they valued safety over freedom.

Now on one hand that is perhaps because having grown up in the U.S. and never experiencing the absence of freedom, they don’t really understand the value of it. On the other hand, I think that every one of us has, to some extent, made “being safe” an idol in our lives.

Just think about how fear dominates and controls your life. Each of us is different, so different fears control or, at the very least, influence us, but think about just a couple that are very common:
• Fear of physical injury – results in avoiding risky activities where we might get hurt.
• Fear of being alone – results in becoming involved in relationships and with people that we shouldn’t simply in order to “be with” someone, anyone.
• Fear of emotional injury – results in lots of casual relationships without becoming deeply involved with anyone in order to avoid getting hurt.
• Fear of what others think of us - results in living lives of pretense or hiding in order to make ourselves acceptable.
• Fear of not having what we need – results in workaholic, miser, or hoarder tendencies.

I first started thinking about how various fears dominate our lives after watching the movie “Big Fish.” Kind of a weird and wonderful movie, but basically, a dying father and his grown son are at odds because the father continues—even on his death bed—to tell the fantastic, unbelievable tales of his life and to insist that they are true. At the funeral, the son meets some of the weird and wonderful people from his dad’s tall tales and begins to realize that all the stories were true! But how could his dad have lived such a life? Well, when he was a young boy, the dad and a couple of friends had gone to the edge of town to see the “witch-woman” because if you looked into her glass eye, you would see the manner of your death. All the friends fled in panic when the woman appeared, but he stayed and saw how he was going to die--presumably as an old man in his bed. Knowing that, he lived his life taking incredible risks, trying the craziest things and experiencing the strange and unusual without fear.

In reality, not one of us can know the number of our days and we have no guarantee of our safety when we do risky, crazy, or strange things. None of us can know for certain when we say “I do” whether we’ll be celebrating a 50th anniversary, caring for a disabled husband, laying the body of a wife in the ground, or standing before a judge in divorce court. None of us can be sure how our lives will turn out despite all our intentions and machinations to determine our course and our destination. Life is uncertain and full of risks and no matter how desperately or diligently we try, we can never be completely safe from the things that would harm us physically or emotionally.

This “fear of life” consumes us--even, unfortunately, as believers. How many prayers have you heard--or prayed yourself--for safety, for health or healing, for desired or deteriorating relationships, for provision, for blessing and comfort? Asking God for those things certainly is not wrong, but what about boldly praying for the advancement of His Kingdom? praying for justice and mercy for the poor and downtrodden? praying that our hearts would be aligned with His, that our lives would reflect Him before the world, no matter what it takes? Ouch, the answers to those prayers might really hurt and they might put us in places that are decidedly NOT safe.

We can, however, pray and live like that and still be ultimately, completely and eternally safe. We can live our lives like the hero of “Big Fish”--passionately and completely without fear. It is said of Jonathan Edwards that “he was so totally committed to what appeared to him to be the will of God; he was not cramped by the tiny fears that make another kind of man cautious.” 1

In our Father’s hands, we are safe, we are secure. He is the God of safety. No, we do not know the future details of our lives and, realistically, some of them may be pretty horrific. No, we cannot control who likes us, who hates us, or what people think of us. No, we have no assurance that we will live out our lives in health, comfort and prosperity. No, we do not know when or how we will die. But, in the big picture, those are simply tiny fears that make us live cautiously when instead we should be living bold, brave, fervent, and passionate lives, safely held in the hands of our Father--the God of safety.

1) Taken from the letter of Dr. William Shippen to Mrs. Sarah Edwards describing her husband’s last thoughts in her absence, March 22, 1758.

What if it were your last day?

I had a very interesting conversation with a friend today. She told me how, upon the very strange and unexpected deaths of two young women in their twenties, she had descended into a very dark place spiritually. These two young women were not related or connected in any way (other than my friend and I happen to know both of their parents) but, in the space of just a couple of months, both of these very healthy, vital women contracted very mysterious illnesses and were dead within a matter of days.

Oh, it was a dark and painful time for many of us who mourned along with the parents and families. These two young women were very close to my friend's own age and the effect upon her was profound. She didn't say this in our conversation, but I think that perhaps this was the first time she had been truly, blatantly confronted with the fact of her own mortality. Oh sure, we're all going to die someday, but we really expect that it won't be until we're old and gray, after having lived a full and fruitful life. But young? vital? healthy? Unexplained, unexpected, unmerciful death in the prime of life? How can hearts be guarded against the uncertainty and fear of that?

She told me how she had become consumed with fear. Almost every moment she thought of death and wondered what she would do if suddenly she were to discover that today would be her last day on earth. She said that the fear almost literally paralysed her, making it difficult for her to even function. Her husband could certainly tell that something dreadful was wrong with her, but she found it extremely difficult to articulate what she felt. How does one explain the feelings and dread when it seems as though a dark battle for the soul is occurring in the depths of the heart?

She said that she had to come to point where she was able to say, "Lord, if today is the last day of my life, that's okay. You are in control." And that is the point we all must come to. Just saying it doesn't change any of the facts. The fact is, God is already in control. He is in control of our every breath--we just forget that. By admitting it to Him and to ourselves, it frees us from the fear of our lives--and our deaths--being out of our own control. It also frees us to live!

Tim McGraw sings a country song called "live Like You Were Dying." It starts off with a friend asking his buddy what he did, how he reacted, when he got a diagnosis of cancer. His answer?

I went sky divin',
I went Rocky Mountain climbin',
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull name Fumanchu.
And I loved deeper,
And I spoke sweeter,
And I gave forgiveness I've been denying,
And he said someday I hope you get the chance,
To live like you were dyin'.

He said I was finally the husband,
That most the time I wasn't.
And I became a friend a friend would like to have.
And all a sudden goin' fishing,
Wasn't such an imposition.
And I went three times that year I lost my dad.
Well I finally read the Good Book,
And I took a good long hard look at what I'd do
If I could do it all again.
And then....

I went sky divin',
I went rocky mountain climbin',
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull name Fumanchu.
And I loved deeper,
And I spoke sweeter,
And I gave forgiveness I've been denying,
And he said someday I hope you get the chance,
To live like you were dyin'.

I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying? We all have that chance. We're all dying, we just don't like to think about it, and it gets pushed back to the dark corners of our minds where we think we can ignore it. It takes something like a diagnosis of cancer or the sudden, unexplained death of someone to refocus us on the preciousness of life and the value of limited time.

So, what if you knew today was your last day? Would it affect the things you were planning to do? Would it cause you to reorganize some priorities? Would it make you look at things differently? I'm sure that every one of us would live that day very differently and with much greater attention and purpose.

Death IS coming, but God is in control. Let's all live like we are dying with purpose, focus, and intentionality during every day of life that God grants us.