You can never be too safe. Right?
Safety is something we crave.
The more we watch the chaos of the world, the more we want to back away from it. We focus ourselves on protecting our financial wellbeing, keeping our kids away from potential danger and preserving our joys and comforts in a world of twists and turns.
Safety, we often believe, is a byproduct of wisdom. If one is smart in making choices, one will live a life marked by safety. This is what we tell ourselves, and this is how we live.
It’s hard to argue against safety.
After all, its opposite is danger.
No one would say that danger, in and of itself, is something we should welcome in our lives to a larger degree. Danger stands opposed to the things we want most. Danger threatens the work we’ve done and the things we have.
Danger is our enemy.
So why not call this website “Safe Lion”? Or some animal that actually is safe?
You’d definitely come to this website if we called it “Safe Sloth”.
(Wait a second, that’s a great idea. Let’s start that website now.)
(“Safe Sloth” is gold. We can make it work.)
The name “Good Lion” comes from the Chronicles of Narnia.
In one scene, Susan is looking at Aslan and asks, “is he a safe lion?”
That’s a great question if you are about to spend a good chunk of your time with a lion… after all, before you get too close to someone or some group, safety is worth considering.
The response was not what she had hoped.
“Safe? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”
Susan had one priority, but the response showed her wrong thinking.
For a Christian, it is easy to want a safe existence.
We sometimes fall into the trap of believing that if God is really good He’ll make our path safe.
The problem is that God is not always concerned about safety; he’s much more concerned with goodness.
We, on the other hand, box ourselves into a safe life, sometimes to the point where we miss out on the good God has for us.
Safe Christianity talks about loving the unsaved without actually spending time with them.
Safe Christianity never challenges its own views of the Bible by hearing out what other,
Jesus-loving Christians believe.
Safe Christianity does not wade into touchy, potentially-divisive issues.
Safe Christianity makes sure to not push beyond comfortable boundaries.
God is a good leader, but He is often not safe. On this site, we want to push beyond safe. Sometimes that will be through the subjects we select, sometimes through examining both sides of an argument and sometimes by us sharing the ways we’ve personally been pushed past safe.
Ultimately, God loves to bring good things into the world.
He wants to use His people to bring about the kind of good He wants to see in our chaotic world.
Safe does not bring this change about.
Let’s not focus ourselves on trying to be safe.
Instead, let’s focus on being good.
