Undaunted by Christine CaineSample

Somewhere along the way, life happens to all of us. We get lured into a place that is small and contained, and we settle for it. We opt to live a smaller story. Much like lions in a zoo, we live caged in plain sight. And we accept it. Confined by our fears, insecurities, and hurts. Limited by rejection we’ve endured, by bitterness that takes hold of us, or by unforgiveness we don’t know how to resolve. Stifled by culture, tradition, even well-intentioned religion. Despite what we say we want, deep down we’re hesitant, afraid even, to live the full, abundant life Jesus came to give us. 

But we have a choice. 

What if I’d never dealt with my fears? What if I’d given in to them and let them decide my future? I’d be grounded, limited to only the places I could get to by car or train. I’d be just like the lions caged in a zoo, lured into believing that a controlled life is better than a wild one. Lured into a place where I’d never get the chance to fulfill all that God has planned for me. I never want to be like a lion whose caged. I want to run free on the plains like I was created to do. I want to go after everything God has called me to do. 

I thought of how the apostle Paul challenged the Corinthians with this very idea. “Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!” (2 Corinthians 6:11-13, MSG).  

I wanted to live God’s wide-open, spacious life more than ever! To walk in faith, fully trusting in where he would lead. Standing there in front of the lion cages, I committed anew in my heart to live the life God had planned for me. I didn’t want to miss one adventure, one assignment, one person. Not one. 

I wanted to live my life with the kind of faith God has given all of us, one that by its very nature is unsafe and unlimited. One that is out of my control and under his. One that is wild, routed through all the unexplored, unchartered, unknown, unsettled places where he wants me to go. If it were any different, then it wouldn’t be faith. It wouldn’t be faith if there were no risk. It wouldn’t be faith if it was predictable. Controllable. Containable. 

After all, the Bible describes faith as the substance of things hoped for, the confidence, assurance, evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). It takes faith to believe in something before one sees it, to genuinely walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). 

That was the life I wanted. 

Adapted from Undaunted: Daring To Do All That God Calls You To Do by Christine Caine. Copyright © 2019 by Christine Caine. Reprinted with permission of Zondervan Publishing. All rights reserved.