“Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief” C. S. Lewis
How do you respond to ‘risk(s)’? Do you flee from them as fast and as far as you can at the mere mention of a potential issue… even before you have confirmed there is a risk? Do you ‘stand and take your ground’ waiting for the risk to emerge? Do you pick up any available weapon and charge headlong into the risk? Do you analyze and prepare as you determine if there actually is a risk? (Obviously, you know my preference.)
Without doubt, the place to begin is with a definition. What may be a risk to one, may be an expected skirmish to another? You need to know your tolerance to risk, but you have to define the word for yourself first. Webster: “… the possibility of loss or injury, someone or something that creates or suggests a hazard.” This your definition… or only part of your definition? Webster’s words of ‘possibility’ and ‘suggests’ only implies a potential problem, it does not say it IS a problem. So what do you do to assess the level of threat? And then, how do you go about making your decision about what to do with the threat?
There are many people who panic or immediately change at the mere wisp of a emergent issue. This you? Do you not even entertain that it may be only a molehill and not a mountain before retreating? And if you are a ‘wait and see’ type… how long will you wait? Until it is a major problem? Or do you use the time to develop other options, approaches to reaching (fill in the blank) rather than quitting?
Though there is an implied ‘best approach’ to risk, I really am not suggesting a method – I’m asking if you know yours! You can modify, change, etc. whatever your approach is – but only after you know! And I realize you could argue that a physical risk us not the same as a risk to a more esoteric context of one’s beliefs. Really? Is your mindsets so compartmentalized? Do you not see a relationship?
What do you do when a firmly held belief you have is challenged? Do you know why you believe as you do and the foundation you’ve built your trust in that belief? When someone ‘attacks’ what you believe – how do you respond? I try to adopt the standard of, ‘…come let us reason together…’ (Isaiah 1:18) and yes, I know the Lord was using that in the context of our sin – but can’t it also be a context to handle disagreements? Even if the end result is that after sharing our understandings we maintain our original beliefs? Iron sharpens iron and discussing those challenges to what we believe only causes us to become strengthen in those beliefs or it causes us to reconsider and redefine.
