I was speeding down I40, heading home from a weekend with my brother when I spotted man huddled in the grass off the edge of the interstate. My first instinct was to wish him well and keep going, but you know that little aggravating voice that asks questions like, “What if he is hurt?” Which was immediately followed by the more sensible voice asking, “And what if he’s a mass murder?” Only to have the third voice chime in, “Chicken! What? You don’t think God is big enough to take care of you?”

I pulled onto the shoulder and backed my little Nissan Sentra grumbling ultimatums at God the entire time, something along the lines that he had better have my back on this one because no one was going to let me live it down if I got myself hurt picking up hitchhikers on the interstate. After all, how dumb is that? Everyone knows that hitchhikers are murders, rapists, and thieves. If I was found dead in a ditch tomorrow it would serve me right, I told myself as I rolled down the window.

“You, alright?” I yelled out and his head sprang up.

I swear his grin was deranged and it was all I could do not to stomp on the gas. Instead, I kept the smile firmly plastered in place.

He jumped up and as he did so, he grabbed a long dark item out of the grass.

“Oh, great, he has a rifle,” I thought with a certain amount of amused resignation. “That’s just great and now my mother can feel vindicated for worrying about my questionable life decisions.” I don’t know which part of that thought irritated me more, him having a rifle or justifying my mother’s worry. You would think that this would be the part in the story where I spun out trying to get away, but if you do, you don’t know me very well. Instead, I just sat there with a death grip on my steering wheel and grinning like an idiot.

As the item in his hand came into full view, I did not even try to stop my relieved laughter. Now this is the point in the story where the man I thought I was helping looked a little scared of me, because there in his sweaty hands was a giant cross – and when I say giant, I mean ginormous construction of wood that was taller than my car was long. I know this for a fact because together he and I strapped it across the roof of that little Sentra and headed down the road while he guzzled water from the case I just so *happened* to have in the back seat. Turns out that even the most dedicated to carrying the message of the cross to the world in such a symbolic manner can under estimate the severity of Oklahoma summers, and that is how he found himself overheated, without water, and alone on the side of the interstate.

You know, walking with God is a lot like that day. You see something that makes you wonder what you should do, what it will possibly cost, or even if it is safe. Those voices in your head start arguing telling you to be sensible, don’t take the foolish risk, God will understand, you are just being wise to keep on trucking, but sometimes there is something in your spirit that just won’t let you go, it draws you back with a hope, a promise, or even a dare, and you wind up yelling out the window to a stranger hoping that God is in this, knowing that if he isn’t life as you know it might be over.

Those opportunities of faith rarely seem safe. In fact, they can look a lot like a stranger pulling a rifle from the grass as you fight off the urge to run for safety, but I have to wonder how many times have we burned rubber trying to make an escape, when if we would have held on for just a heartbeat more God would have revealed himself?

So today, take a risk. Make a choice to step into the unknown, the scary, and the foolish. And just when the fear seems too much, wait a heartbeat more, see if God does not show himself there.