Risk ...

Wednesday, July 25, 2012. Life is full of risk. There is risk when you climb a mountain. There is risk when you lend someone money. There is risk when you marry someone. It is risk to drive a car, risk to go into town in the night, risk to own a house which can be broken into. Risk is part of our life!

Risk management …

We try to manage our risk. The banks try to use ratings and rankings, to be able to control the percentage of loss they have in a particular sector. On the mountains there might be security ropes. The car has a security belt and today an airbag.

We try to have a burgler alarm in our house. There are further security measures, which many people follow. We try to keep the risk manageable. There are insurances which keep consequences of risk under control. We have a health insurance, which pays the consequences of illness. There is a liability insurance, which pays when we get sued for various reasons. Sometimes, it is highly debated which type of insurances everyone should have - and whether the state is allowed to make some insurances compulsory.

What about the other risks in life? What about the risk that relationships fail? What about the risk that our kids or family members get into a bad environment and start to go down a distructive path? What about difficulties which can arise in our wider family or in our church community?

Risk, faith, trust …

Some people use faith as a type of life insurance. They believe just in case there is some truth in all this religious things and they want to be on the save side. They are church members, they even believe, but they do not really take things that serious - they are busy with many other things.

Indeed, faith itself is a risk. We do not have a security that it is true what we believe. It is trust - and that is the whole nature of faith. It needs to be trust, its purpose and goal is trust. When we would find a proof for faith, it would loose its inner core. It would not be faith any more!

But faith deals with risk as well. It answers risk with the trust which the Lord puts in us and which we put in the Lord. Trust is not security, but trust is different. Risk is addressed by the Lord and he gives promises, that he is there and that he will help and support. We are asked to trust in him, with everything we do. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts