The world is a dangerous place

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote: "It's a dangerous business going out your front door."

I tend to agree with him. There are many people in this world who are scared to live, scared to move, scared to make decisions. They stand paralyzed, waiting for safety to embrace them. The only problem is that safety never will embrace them, because the world is a dangerous place.

We must embrace the fact that we live in a dangerous world, filled with dangerous people, dangerous places, dangerous things, and dangerous spiritual beings.

My question to you today is this...how do you deal with this? Do you like many other people try to be like the child who stacks and ties pillows around him/herself or are you fatalistic and don't care? Are you hardened and consigned to the fact that something will get you but you don't know what? Or do you rest comfortably knowing that a great, personal Being has and is directing all of the affairs of your life for your best interest.

Personally, my answer echos the Heidelberg Catechism's first question, "What is thy only comfort in life and death?":

"That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him."

I belong to Christ. I am his and he is mine, he takes care of me and plans every detail of my life. I live for him and he loves me dearly.

So, I embrace the danger in the world, because, as I take necessary caution and wisdom in all I do in this world, so as to be wise, I am truly immortal in this life until my dear Savior calls me home. So, I say, bring on the challenges, bring on the troubles, because it is only in these that my dear Savior refines me. I am like gold, I have dirt, hay and stubble in me, I must be melted and beat to make me into purer gold.