When Neither Choice is Safe

They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. (Rev 12:11)

A few weeks ago, I told a friend, “If you only have two options, and neither is safe, choose the more dangerous one.” Think about it. Let’s say you’re on death row. You’re going to die. And yet you are given two choices. With the first choice, you can sit around in prison and starve to death. With the second choice, you can battle a fire-breathing dragon that will potentially rip you limb from limb and eat you alive. Which would you choose? Starving in prison would be less painful. And yet, with the fire-breathing dragon, you at least have a fighting chance. And if you die by the dragon’s fangs, then at least you gave everything you had. You fought that beast. You died a glorious death. You will go down a hero, one who gave everything he had and held nothing back.

Two choices. Neither are safe. With the first, your death is sure, and boring. With the second, you have a chance you might live, with a high dose of adventure attached. But even if you die, you’ll die in glory. If you have only two choices and neither are safe, go with the more dangerous one.

Here’s another way I’ve looked at this: you’re standing on the edge of a cliff. You can’t go anywhere but forward. But . . . there’s a cliff. It’s steep, it’s a long way down, and if you go off the edge, you’re sure to go *kisplat* on the ground below. But you can’t see the ground, or even what’s in front of you, because it’s dark and foggy and you’ve absolutely no idea what’s beyond the edge.

So what do you do? On the one hand, you can have some invisible thing forcefully nudge you off the edge . . . and there you go, slipping ever so un-gracefully over the edge, scraping yourself up and bouncing off the wall of the cliff the whole way down, and to your death you go.

But what’s the other option? You go several steps back and take a running start. You fling yourself off into the abyss as high and far as you can leap. Feel the wind rushing in your face as you feel yourself fall. After all, it’s not the fall that kills you; it’s the sudden stop at the end. So off you go, into the blackness, into the unknown, knowing that your fate is sure to come. But at least you got to enjoy the fall before you got there.

But what if God promised you wings? Would you jump? If you had only two options, would you go for the more dangerous one, knowing there’s a promise attached? Say you faced the fire-breathing dragon and God promised he would give you an enchanted sword and shield (like in Sleeping Beauty!). Would you face the dragon, trusting he’d provide the sword and shield in the midst of battle? Would you do it? Would you trust him?

See, I think that as Christians, we oftentimes don’t really believe in the promises of God. When was the last time you truly believed God would raise someone from the dead? If he “doesn’t do that anymore,” then what makes you think he did it back then? If you don’t believe God still raises the dead today, then by golly, he probably didn’t raise Jesus from the dead either and your faith is worthless. If we really believed in the Resurrection, we as a Church would live a whole lot differently.

But let’s take it down a notch. God makes a promise. A promise to you as an individual. He says he wants to work a miracle in your life. A specific miracle, which really isn’t so much a miracle as it is just a huge improbability. Small in the scale of the world, but huge in the scale of your own life. It’s a miracle meant for you and you alone, a promise tailored to fit his plan for your life. Will you believe him? If he commands you to believe, will you obey him? If he sets a cliff in front of you, will you take a giant leap into the blackness, believing that he will give you wings to fly? If he sends you to the dragon, will you stride toward it in full confidence, knowing your God will save you? Do you have the faith of David, of Daniel, of Joseph? Do you really believe in the Resurrection? Do you really believe that God will do precisely what he said he’s gonna do? Christianity is a religion made up entirely of belief in the most insane promises the world has ever known. If you’re really a Christian, and you really believe the big promises, then it won’t be so insane to believe the promises he’s given to you as an individual. Don’t forget his promises. Labor for them. They don’t come cheap. Pray. Fast. Wait. Believe. Your God will come. He will come to save you.


In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures . . . that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.
(Dan 9:2-3)

“And now, LORD God, keep forever the promise you have made concerning your servant and his house. Do as you promised, so that your name will be great forever. . . . Your words are trustworthy, and you have promised these good things to your servant. Now be pleased to bless your servant, for you, O Sovereign LORD, have spoken.”
(2 Sam 7:25,28-29)


The God of Daniel and David is the same God we serve today. He is faithful, his promises are true, and he is doggone powerful. Now . . . let’s live what we believe.