Take a Chance on Me
I was already over-educated when I joined All Nations and filled with the abounding optimism a western education gives to many of us…an optimism that says if we set our minds to it, we can do anything and become anything.
This is a prized perspective in information-driven economies, but it is not a Biblical picture of who humans are called to be. I vastly overestimated my ability to think my way toward the goal of seeing God's Kingdom come through changed lives and communities. Fortunately, my bright-eyed enthusiasm wasn't held against me once I joined All Nations. The leaders here saw something else in me: a hunger for the King and His Kingdom.
In this season of my life, wise elders here in Cape Town with names like Mike, Kalyn, Rassie, Marietjie, Floyd and Sally, encouraged me to turn information into knowledge and then knowledge into wisdom through giving me assignments that forced me to convert the ideals of my thinking-brain into the messy actions and relationships where the Kingdom truly comes. They took a chance on me, offering me opportunities for leadership, and then giving honest yet encouraging feedback as often as they could.
There are a lot of ways that people can be deemed unqualified for the adventure-filled and relationally risk-taking roles that contribute to bringing about God's Kingdom, and I am grateful that these elders took a chance on me, modelling this value we have in All Nations for “taking a chance on relationships.”
This important value isn’t about doing work that is strategically fruitful, because sometimes it really isn’t. But we commit to it because it beautifully images the character and nature of God to the world we live in.
Before time, God lived in a completely fulfilled relationship as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and yet in a chance-taking overflow of God's life and love, creation came forth. In the midst of creation, God took a chance by placing stewards and caretakers to reflect His love and care for the created order and for them to reflect the worship and goodness of creation back to him. These first humans were not simply subservient robots but were truly free. They could choose to give and receive the love they had received, or not.
God took a chance. As we look through the chronicles of the Hebrew Scriptures we repeatedly see broken image-bearers being called, not because they were qualified, but because they held a hunger for God and for His purposes. Names like Abram and Sarai, Moses, Deborah, Joseph, David and Esther were some of the many God took a chance on, as he entrusted his word and witness to them.
Ultimately, the coming of Jesus is the crescendo of God’s commitment to take a chance in relationships. The second person of the Trinity taking on human form was entrusted into the questionable circumstances of his conception and lived an unremarkable life as a manual laborer. Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures while still subverting everyone's expectations for a Messiah, and all through his life he was attracting, blessing and commissioning the outlaws, the misfits and those deemed unqualified.
And so, as people called by his name and called to be his body, we follow his lead and we take a chance. We trust that every person is beloved of God. Every person has worth and extraordinary potential to become what they were made to be. We welcome people, just like me, who have ideals which need to be reworked or refined through the messy, relational realities where love, and therefore God's kingdom, happens. We welcome people who are hopeless and rejected, knowing the one from whom all true hope and belonging comes.
We don’t get overly romantic about it! We just do it, because here’s the reality check: Hurt people hurt others, broken people break things, and messy people make messes. How do we keep hold of our value to take a risk when it feels like the risk is too great? When it doesn’t feel worth it, or when it feels like it endangers our task?
I would argue that most of the New Testament (beyond the gospels), are letters written to communities who are struggling with exactly this problem. When Jesus tells his followers how people will know that they are his disciples, he doesn’t say, “by the fruit of your exploits, the effectiveness of your methods, and the persuasiveness of your communication.” He says it will be, “by your love for one another.” (John 13:35)
We will be known by our love, and love is work, hard work. Love is a habit and a discipline. Sometimes, love just feels like too much costly work, but it is so much more than this. Loving others is truly a participation in God Himself because, as Christians, we are not left alone to 'tough it out' when Jesus tells us to love the people we have taken a risk on. He gives us his Spirit. And so we are called to take a risk in relationships, in the good times and the bad. We are called to lean into the empowering presence of God to be faithful lovers of people, even when that love feels like a cross.
The Apostle John reminds us that “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) and we might go on to say, “we risk, because he first took a risk on us.” We risk, we love and we rely on the faithful God who started it all, lived it out as Jesus Christ, and will bring it all to completion. We take a chance on relationships because that is who the God we’ve come to know in Jesus Christ does, and he shows us the way.
About the author: Liam and Rachel Byrnes joined All Nations and did their CPx (Church Planting Experience) in 2010 in Cape Town. They've lived there ever since working in the township of Masiphumelele encouraging and mentoring young people and local leaders. In the past few years, alongside a local team, they've helped lead Isithembiso, the Child of Promise ministry. They also serve the YWAM University of the Nations' Centre for Christian Formation and Discipleship, teaching, training, mentoring, and coaching other mission and ministry leaders.
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