Pastor John, you have a new book out, a little 50-page book titled,

Risk is Right, Better to Lose Your Life Than to Waste It.

And I want to talk specifically to a Christian who's considering taking a risk.

I think we all have dreams, aspirations, things that we think God has called us to,

but that does not necessarily confirm that we should take those risks.

Talk with us for a little bit about the difference between a right risk and a wrong risk

and how the church and how our Christian friends can help us determine which risks God is actually calling us to.

The church that is the body of Christ, both corporately as we gather in preaching, and praying, and singing, and confessing,

and the smaller manifestations of it, our small group, the people around us who love us and care for us,

they, it, is always playing a role in the choices we make about the risks we take.

Even when we don't even know they are, because we learn everything we know about God and everything we know about the Bible from the church,

from our parents, from some old group, from some of the school teachers,

and everything we know about the Bible and the world informs the choices we make.

And then there's the more immediate and specific counsel that we receive from people who have gifts of wisdom and gifts of experience,

who can speak into our lives with regard to marriage and jobs and patterns of life that may seem foolish to them,

and they can help us avoid stupid mistakes in our lives, which would create risks that are just totally unwarranted.

So that's the piece of the church. I just think none of us should live in a bubble where we're making all these decisions by ourselves.

God ordained that we would be helped by the people around us.

With regard to what risks are foolish, it would be risking your life for something small,

or turning it around and being unwilling to take no risk for something big.

You know, the principle is proportionality. The bigger the hoped for outcome for the glory of God,

the greater the risk that it's wise to take and smaller the outcome,

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