RISK-TAKING

My friend Ethan Galebach posted this comment on his Facebook page yesterday.

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." -Wayne Gretzky

Gretsky is on to something. In a world where people want to be inoculated against risk, many people never want to exert themselves or extend themselves. Fear of failure or fear of accountability often lead to the unwillingness to even try unless you can insure success and/or approval.

The Christian church in China might have died at the hands of Mao and the Red Guard if countless and nameless believers hadn't taken a risk.

Imagine a world where no one ever took a risk. Many of us residing in the United States today would still be thinking that Europe was the center of the universe and that you fell off the world somewhere beyond the Azores. Except for a man named Christopher Columbus. who took a risk.

People on a US Air flight that lost power over Manhattan might have died in a crash somewhere except for a pilot who took the risk that he could land on the Hudson River.

Slaves would have remained in bondage in the Deep South if some Quakers and others had not risked reputation and prosecution to create the Underground Railroad.

Soldiers would have continued to die needless death on the endless battlefields of Europe if a woman named Clara Barton hadn't taken a risk and carried medical treatment (and herself) into harm's way.

No great achievement that has truly benefited humankind has been accomplished without someone taking a risk and even paying a heavy price for that risk.

Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than when he lays down his life for a friend."

Love is not afraid of risk.