I know this to be true. "The only exercise that works 100 percent of the time to draw one close to the real God is risk. To risk is to willingly place your life in the hand of an unseen God and an unknown future, then watch Him come through. He starts to get real when you live like that. Stepping wholly dependent on God to come through, stepping away from what is secure and comfortable exposes the holes in our faith. And then when God comes through, it expands our faith. We see Him move in greater ways. When we risk and He shows up, we see Him differently than if we were standing safely looking on." -Jennie Allen
What are you holding on to that is keeping you from letting go and trusting fully in God? How is holding onto it really working for you? What do you stand to miss out on if you keep holding on to whatever "it" is? God never asked us to follow Him when it is pretty and comfortable and familiar. He asked us to follow and obey Him, no matter what. In the risk that is following Jesus, we come to know the God of the universe. I don't know about you, but I want to know Him... like REALLY know Him!
And Jesus said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. -Luke 9:23-24
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
-Philippians 3:7-14
