Mark Batterson shared a brilliant post here, about the need at times to “cut the lines to the lifeboat” instead of playing it safe. Sharing from the story of Paul’s crash landing in the Island of Malta, the decision to throw everything overboard, cut the lines to the lifeboat and stay on the ship, saved their lives. That story rivals anything on this season of Lost.

Mark observes wisely, “we like backup plans. We all want a lifeboat. But there are moments in life when you have to cut the lines to the lifeboat. And the very thing that seems the riskiest is actually the safest and what seems the safest is actually the riskiest. The thing that could cost your life ends up saving your life and the thing that could save your life ends up costing your life.

I have been struggling, wrestling with and resisting, a decision that would require enormous personal risk for me and my family. Our human tendency is always to play it safe. Something about our fallen nature seems to revert back to the path of least resistance. Recently, as I have been reading through the life of Christ, I am convicted about how little Jesus played it safe. Unfortunately, sanitized, Sunday school Jesus is never presented this way. Following Jesus means we follow him wherever he leads. And sometimes, where He leads, will mean a shipwreck and a snake bite — and if we dare to follow — an island-wide revival. Acts 27:1-28:10