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When was the last time you did something bold? When was the last time you colored outside the lines, refusing to play it safe? When was the last time you stepped out of your comfort zone and took a risk in life?

Moving Beyond our Comfort Zones by Taking A Risk Ecclesiastes 11: 1-10 

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When was the last time you did something bold? When was the last time you colored outside the lines, refusing to play it safe? When was the last time you stepped out of your comfort zone and took a risk in life?

I'm told there is a sign at the beginning of the Alaskan Highway that reads, "Choose your rut carefully, you'll be in it for the next 200 miles." And you know, a lot of folks live their lives just like that sign. Especially the spiritual dimension of their lives. They choose to accept boredom as if it somehow makes them more spiritual.

But friends, life is not meant to be monotonous. Life, as designed by our Creator, is meant to be an adventure!

Today as we start day 43 of our 50-Day spiritual adventure, we stop to think about moving beyond our comfort zones by taking some risks of a spiritual nature. Now, I'm not advocating taking crazy risks like investing your life savings into some get rich quick scheme, like Ralph Kramden on the old Honeymooners TV show, or deciding to put the theory of gravity to a test from the roof of a tall building. But I do hope to take a look with you at some high risk/high reward principles that might help you consider leaving that zone of comfort over the next few days and, maybe even longer.

To do that we can look at that text from Ecclesiastes, chapter 11, where Solomon describes the risks that might be taken by the merchants of his day. These merchants would, literally, "cast their bread upon the waters." That is, they would put their merchandise on boats to be shipped to foreign ports, hoping for a profitable return "after many days."

But to fully understand the context of this text we need to have a little comprehension about life in Solomon's day.

During those days, an awful lot of ships were wrecked, and merchants would take a total loss. Pirates frequented the seas. Cargo was stolen. Ship captains were dishonest. And there certainly weren't any insurance policies to cover losses. And to top all that off... there was a long wait to see if you were going to make any money.

So why would the merchants take all these risks? Because the reward was so great!

And Solomon uses this illustration to encourage his readers to step out of their comfort zones and become risk takers. And not only does this scripture encourage us to be risk takers - it encourages us to be high-risk takers!

But it is our human nature to immediately protest that idea, isn't it? We can think of all the reasons we've been taught not to take high risks. But in Ecclesiastes Solomon is taking an illustration from the material world and giving it a spiritual application. And we can tell this by what Solomon says in the rest of the chapter.

So let's spend a few minutes this morning looking at some spiritual high risk/ high reward principles. And here's the first...

1. GIVE OVER AND ABOVE EXPECTATIONS

In Ecclesiastes 11:2 Solomon writes "Give portions to seven, yes to eight, for you do not know what disaster may come upon the land."

Now we all know that since the future is so uncertain we should hoard our material possessions, right? WRONG!

Sure the conventional wisdom is to save for a "rainy day." But Jesus taught us in the Parable of the Rich Fool in Luke 12:21, to not only lay up treasure for ourselves, but also to be rich toward God.

If you always hoard what God has blessed you with and don't share with others, you've totally missed the point of what being rich toward God is all about. Solomon says "give portions to seven and also to eight." We need to remember that seven is the biblical number for completion. You would be doing what was expected of you to give a portion of your goods to seven people. But Solomon says - try something radical for God - give to the eighth person also! Take the high risk! Move out of your comfort zone! Go ahead, "cast your bread upon the waters!"

The following story, although a little lengthy, wonderfully proves Solomon's point. It was first printed, I think, in Wit and Wisdom Magazine in 1998. And it's entitled "The Rich Family in our Church"

Author Edie Ogan writes "I'll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy was 12, and my older sister Darlene was 16. We lived at home with mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things.

My Dad had died 5 years earlier leaving mom with seven school kids to raise and no money. By 1946 my older sisters were married and my older brothers had left home.

A month before Easter, the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially. When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering. Then we decided that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn't listen to the radio, we'd save money on the month's electric bill too.

Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us babysat for everyone we could. For 15 cents you could buy enough cotton loops to make three pot holders to sell for $1. We made $20 on pot holders.

That month was one of the best of our lives. Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we'd sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in church, so we figured that whatever amount we could give, the offering would surely be 20 times that much!

After all, every Sunday the pastor would remind everyone to save for the sacrificial offering. The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change. We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We never had so much money before. That might we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn't care that we wouldn't have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering. We could hardly wait to get to church!

On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn't own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile away, but it didn't seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart and her feet got wet. But we sat in church proudly. I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having their old dresses. I looked at them in their new clothes, and I felt so rich.

When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting in the second row from the front. Mom put in the $10 bill and each of us kids put in a $20 bill. As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. At lunch Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes!

Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door and talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn't say a word. She opened the envelope and a bunch of money fell out. There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 bill and 17 $1 bills. Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn't talk. We just sat and stared at the floor.

We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor, white trash. We kids had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn't have our Mom for a parent and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly. We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the fork or the spoon that night. We had 2 knives which we passed to whoever needed them. I knew we didn't have a lot of things that other people had, but I never thought we were poor. That Easter day I found out we were. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor.

I didn't like being poor. I looked at my clothes and worn out shoes and felt so ashamed that I didn't want to go back to church. Everyone there probably knew we were poor! I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew we were poor. I decided I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade and that's all the law required at that time.

We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark and we went to bed.

All that week, we went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn't know. We'd never known we were poor.

We didn't want to go to church on Sunday but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn't talk on the way. Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse.

At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun-dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. He said that $100 would put a roof on a church.

Our minister said, “Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?" We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week. Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it down the row to each of us and I put it into the offering. When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was sure excited. He hadn't expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, 'you must have some very rich people in this church."

Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that "little over $100". We were the rich family in the church! Hadn't the missionary said so? From that day on I've never been poor again. I've always remembered just how rich I am because I have Jesus!"

That story points out that people are not rich because of what they have, but they're rich because of what they give! And those who take the highest risk, by stepping out of their comfort zones, often experience the highest reward.

Here's a second high risk/high reward spiritual principle:

2. DON’T MAKE EXCUSES.

Solomon tells us in verses 3 and 4 "If clouds are full of water, they pour rain upon the earth. Whether a tree falls to the south or the north, in the place where it falls it will lie. Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap."

Some things, folks are inevitable. Clouds will being rain. A tree lies right where it falls. Solomon observes that some folks just won't take risks or leave their comfort zones because they fear these occurrences. They won't sow their seeds because they're afraid the wind will take it away. They're right - the wind might blow their seed away. Some folks think it might rain so they don't try to harvest their crops. They're right too! Sometimes when we try to get something positive done - something negative gets in our way. But you can't sit on your hands throughout your entire life, just because you're afraid something bad might happen!

Don't wait for ideal conditions to step out of your comfort zone and take a spiritual risk! Because no matter what precautions you try to take, there are some things you have no control over - so instead try living by faith. Take the risk and leave the results to God!

Here's another high risk/high reward spiritual principle:

3. EXPECT THINGS BEYOND YOUR UNDERSTANDING

Continuing in Ecclesiastes 11 verses 5 and 6 we read: "As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. Sow your seed in the morning and in the evening do not let your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well."

"The path of the wind" can also be translated as "the way of the Spirit". And meteorologists have learned an awful lot about the weather but there sure is still a lot of mystery in things like tornadoes, hurricanes, and lake effect snow. The wind, it seems, often blows where it wills.

But if you really want to get in a mystical mood, just stop to consider how the human body develops in the womb from a tiny fertilized egg. Human kind can duplicate some aspects of God's gift of life - but we can't create life.

There is that story about the scientist who challenged God to a contest to create life. God began forming man from the dust of the earth just as He did in the Garden of Eden. The scientist looked at God and said, "Okay, if you'll just hand me some dirt I'll get started too." To which God replied, "Get your own dirt."

Don't worry that you may fail if you try. Failure is only certain if you don't try!

Here's Solomon's fourth principle for spiritual high risk/high reward:

4. PLAN ON DARK DAYS

Verses 7 and 8 go on to say: "Light is sweet, and it pleases your eyes to see the sun. However many years a man may live, let him enjoy them all. But let him also remember the days of darkness, for there will be many. Everything to come is meaningless."

Sure, sunshine is great. But there are going to be some dark days in everyone's life. We're told that the difference between the sunny days and the dark days is how you look at them!

C.S. Lewis, whose mother died when he was nine, later lost his wife Joy to cancer. When he was a boy he never came to grips with his mother's death. As a man, he was forced to come to grips with the death of his wife. He said afterwards, "the boy chooses safety, the man chooses suffering."

I don't think Lewis was being morbid here. I think he was expressing the same truth as Solomon, we can face the dark days because of all the promises and strength God offers us. We don't have to run from our pain and our sorrows.

And certainly Jesus life proves that point. Here is the greatest man who ever lived and yet He endured the greatest suffering. And his strength can become ours today if we will move outside our comfort zones and take the risk to embrace our pain.

And, finally, here's the fifth spiritual principle of high risk/high reward:

5. KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE BIG PICTURE

Solomon writes: "Be happy, young man, while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you judgment. So then, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body, for youth and vigor are meaningless."

We're reminded that the trappings of youth are only temporary but eternity is forever!

We live in a world in which young people tend to go to the extreme of not thinking about the consequences of their actions. But as we grown older, we can go to the other extreme. We tend to be content to play it safe. We settle into comfortable and predictable lives.

And then we read these last two verses that serve as a wake up call to older adults. Don't become a dust collector. Cast your bread upon the waters! Don't let fear, pessimism, and paranoia rule you! Stay spiritually awake! Remain spiritually active!

Friends, dreams die in our comfort zones. The only way to stay alive is to keep growing. And to keep growing you need to keep dreaming. Jesus calls us out of our comfort zones not because he wants us to squirm, but because he knows there is a kind of growth that occurs when we take a risk and move out of what is comfortable to us.

So this week - try taking a risk and moving out of your comfort zone. Because that is surely where you will find the Lord waiting to help you dream yet again. Amen.