"Don't Worry about the Mule Going Blind" or A Life of Calculated Risk , further thoughts from Ecclesiastes

The human animal, like all animals, is beset with fears. We live in a world that can hurt us, physically and emotionally, and we learn this early on. Whether or not fear is intrinsic to our human nature or is a learned condition is something I will leave for the experts to argue about, but I know from experience that it is known early and continues unabated throughout life.

The fact of fear drives us to seek security in a variety of ways. We protect ourselves and well we might. Whether it is seen in a provident concern for financial or physical security, or the avoidance of people and things that may harm us, we spend a lot of time, money and mental energy creating safe places and comfort zones in our lives. We play it safe.

This is right and good...up to a point. Where it becomes a problem is when it gets in the way of a life well lived, a life fully lived. Thus, for some, the fear of travel and of travel in airplanes is so profound that they refuse to travel. How sad this is and how impoverished their lives compared to those who have seen other lands, tasted other foods, and engaged with other peoples in their own cultures. I am glad that I grew up on the Southern Plains and on the Red River. My childhood was spent in some of the richest historical spots in the United States in terms of the saga of the American West- Young County, Texas and Love County, Oklahoma. But, I am also glad that I have walked the streets of London and Paris by myself and have seen the Southern Alps of New Zealand. I am the richer because of this. I am also less inclined to think that, as much as I love my native country, ours is the only good, beautiful, and culturally rich place on earth. It is not safe (in an absolute sense) to travel, but it does make for a richer, fuller life.

Ecclesiastes in chapter 11 urges his readers to a life of calculated risk. While the Wisdom Tradition of the Bible (Proverbs, Job, the Psalms, along with Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament, and the Sermon of the Mount and James in the New) counsels caution and safety in many areas of life, e.g., "In the multitude of counselors is safety," it also challenges us to avoid playing it so safe that we do not open ourselves to the surprises and blessings that come from taking calculated and deliberate risks.

Thus, the writer says, "Cast your bread upon the waters, and after many days it will return to you." It is generally conceded by scholars that what is being urged here is an investment in goods carried by merchant seamen. Travel on the sea has always been hazardous and risky, and this was especially so in ancient times. The land-locked Israelites seem in particular to have had an aversion to the sea, see Jonah and Psalm 107. So, such counsel as is found here is contrary to human nature and its propensity to play it safe.

Another picture from the Bible comes to mind. It is that of Jocabed, the mother of Moses, placing her endangered little son in an ark of bullrushes and setting him afloat on the Nile, only to have him returned to her as his wet-nurse. The child is risked, he is saved, and he is returned to his mother.

We must try to live our lives with such a resolve: To risk ourselves in a manner that will ultimately enrich us. This calls for a courage, a daring, that is intrepid and undaunted. Whether we think of giving ourselves in service to others who may not appreciate us and may actually hurt us, or the giving of our financial resources to worthy projects, or simply trying new things that will stretch and improve us, such action calls for courage.

The fear factor at this point is compounded by two things mentioned by the Preacher ("Ecclesiastes" means preacher or questor {Eugene Peterson}).

The first group of things are those inevitable things that take place in the world that can literally blow away or smash our lives to pieces. (This would include all the metaphorical things that can do the same.) "If the clouds are full, they pour out rain upon the earth; and whether a tree falls toward the south or the north, wherever the tree falls, there it lies. He who watches the wind will not sow, and he who looks at the clouds will not reap" Vv. 3,4. Rain, winds, falling trees... these are things that can and do happen in the world and they can wreak havoc in the lives of those who happen to be in the way.

The point is, we must never let what might happen get in the way of our living. If we do, we shall not live fully and richly. The fear of catastrophe is an impediment to a fully-lived life. Let us be undaunted in the face of storms (literal or metaphorical). Life is worth the risk. The old timers I used to know had a saying that fits this. "Don't worry about the mule going blind, just load the wagon!" Don't worry about the "what ifs," the "could happens," just live!

The second thing that may abridge a fully-lived life is speculation about the purpose of God in our daily affairs. This is a chronic problem among people of faith, especially people of Biblical faith. They are constantly wondering "What is God saying in this?" "What is God's purpose in that?" Pastors are regularly confronted with the anxiety and even the neuroses of the faithful in this regard. To this Ecclesiastes says, "Just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of a pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things" V 5. Astonishing! And, liberating!

The fact is (and this, unfortunately, is not "known" by many people of faith) we do not really know at any given moment what God's intention is in the details of our daily lives. We have some understanding of the larger, over-arching purpose of God from such texts as Romans 8:29-30 and Ephesians 1:3-14. And I want to emphasize that even this understanding and knowledge is based on faith, not on things that are provable from observation of the details of our lives. But, in terms of the daily details of our lives, we cannot declare with any certainty what God's intentions are. I lost my mother at age thirteen months. Why? Because of sin in her life or my father's life? The thought is repellent. Because God wanted to teach us a lesson? No less repellent. Because... Oh, quit! We do not know and cannot now know. My poor father wasted nearly half his life brooding over such questions. And those "church-people" who presume to declare the "whys" and the "wherefores" of such events are arrogant no-nothings who remind me of Mark Twain's censure of a certain minister, "He was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity, that he might fill it!"

Brooding and fretting about the purpose of God in the daily troubles and threats of life will only impede daring, risky living.

What we are called to at such a point is faith in God himself. This, too, is a risky thing. Faith always is. One thinks of "Pascal's Wager." I also think of the people of faith described in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. Here are people who risked everything because of their faith in God. They forsook their homelands, they sacrificed fame and fortune, they offered up their very lives in faith. They were undaunted, intrepid, fearless, and courageous. And all of these things were borne of their faith in God.

Jesus calls us to a such a faith and to such a fully-lived life, promising life and abundant life to those who forsake trust in themselves, their own plans, their own devices in order to trust in him.

Armed with such faith, it is possible to live a different kind of life, a life of faith that is undaunted before the "could happen" things of life, a life undiminished by fruitless, futile questions of what God's purpose is in this or that thing. This is the fully-lived life.

It is such a life that is promised in the word of Jesus, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."