Living in 'Safe Mode'

In this age of technology I am sure you have been sitting at your computer when suddenly the screen goes black, there is a cacophony of whirring and beeping from the machine and you then get this message telling you your system has recovered from a ‘fatal error’ and will be restarted in ‘Safe Mode’. Once the restart has occurred your computer is the same yet oddly different. All of your icons seem to be twice the size they once were, your machine seems to run slower than normal, all the information is there, but it just isn’t firing on all cylinders. You are in ‘Safe Mode’. Josef Mensah described ‘Safe Mode’ like this, “it's just so big and like... bulky. It's like having airbags on your computer imploded 24/7”.

I was thinking about this during the week and wondered if it were possible for us to live our lives in ‘Safe Mode’. Is it possible to be able to do all the same functions as we normally do but only a little more slowly, with a little less effectiveness. Is it possible to live life with airbags deployed 24/7? Are you living that life right now? Have you spent the past number of years trying to get into ‘Safe Mode’? It is interesting to think that so much of our society tries to “help” stay safe with so many devices designed to make our lives easier. Yet I wonder if all of these life enhancing gadgets are actually reducing our lives to little more than existence in vegetative states of passionless computer/television/game viewing.

Have we lost our desire to do the impossible?

Pastor Ray spoke about God being able to do the impossible but it struck me that even though God is capable, unless we are actually willing to allow Him to do the impossible – and to do it in His way – then we will never see it.

Recently Dione wrote in the AMPED blog page that the youth were restless and felt like their Christian life was too easy. They wanted a challenge. They were living in ‘Safe Mode’. Matthew 5:10 says “Blessed are those who are persecuted.” Matthew 10:23 says “When you are persecuted…”. John 15:20 says, “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also..” According to Jesus there is no ‘Safe Mode’ for His followers - there is a life of persecution.

But who really wants that?

Surely if we just keep our thoughts and our beliefs to ourselves then we will stay off the world’s radar and have a quiet life. We really do not need to have all that controversy anyway do we? Wouldn’t it be better if we just had a few of those people who seem to enjoy being persecuted to take enough for the rest of us? Let’s just stay out of trouble and live our own lives, not interfering with anyone else and definitely not upsetting anyone.

If you honestly look at your life and the previous paragraph defines your goals in life then I would submit that you are living in ‘Safe Mode’. I find myself all too often drifting to this place where the persecution, the knowledge that people are talking about you (and usually not in a positive light), the hurt that comes from people becomes too much and I pull back the reigns and shut down and let the airbags deploy around me. I retreat into ‘Safe Mode’.

As comfortable a place as that can be, and as painful a place that persecution can be, I chose the latter. I chose today to restart and deselect ‘Safe Mode’ and to operate full on as God created and intended for me to live. There will be risk involved and there will be persecution and there will be pain, but the knowledge that God has created me and called me to serve with everything He has given me is motivation to endure whatever should come my way.

So what about you? Are you living in ‘Safe Mode’? Have you stepped back from the things that God has called you to because if hurt or pain caused by others, even those within the church? Have you shut down your creativity and your risk-taking ability to play it safe and make sure that you do not upset anyone with your relationship with Jesus? Have you changed your lifestyle such that church has become for you a Sunday morning only affair where you pop in and out without passion or zeal for the body you meet with? Are you so battered and bruised from the words of others that you find yourself forced to make leadership decisions and yet you only elect for the safe option, the one that will not upset anybody, but often the one that deep in your heart you know will be least effective? Does this very article upset you? Are you living in ‘Safe Mode’?

I believe it is time to break free from the chains that have bound us down. It is time to step out in faith and do the things that we believe God has called us to do – even when it looks risky. How many times have you read a story of some believer who made some crazy decision, stepped out in some impossible direction only to have the Lord fill in all the details and carry them to a tremendous victory? Do you wonder like me why that doesn’t happen to you? Do you then realize that you would never take the chance – so God would never have the opportunity to be God. I believe that God is setting before us a season of opportunity that will require us to step out of ‘Safe Mode’ and to take a risk, to lean on Him and not to trust in our own understanding. I believe that there are tremendous opportunities that God has in store for us, but like we saw in the video clip last Sunday – we need to take a step of faith into what appears to be a bottomless abyss. It is time to restart our systems and to de-select the ‘Safe Mode’ option.

Are you with me?