Would you take a Dare from God?
This is a follow up post from my previous post “Let’s Talk Real Power”.
I don’t know about you, but as a kid we often dared each other to do some pretty crazy things. Once, after what we would have called a monster rain storm, the ditches were overflowing with water. We had been riding our bikes prior to the rain and making ramps to jump with some boards. There is just something uniquely powerful about the feeling of flying!
Once the rain finally stopped, back before computers and iPhones, when kids actually played outside, me and my buddies were quickly back out on our bikes.
One of the guys gets this crazy idea. You know, one of those farfetched ideas birthed deep inside a kid’s imagination. “I bet nobody will try to jump over that ditch full of water”, he says. Everyone was like, “Get real”. That is until he added the famous three words, “I DARE YOU”.
I don’t know about you, but God placed a fearless bone, actually a bunch of them, inside of this freckled faced skinny kid. My dad had given me a new bike recently and I thought I was capable of anything on that bike. When my friend pulled the ace of spades out of the deck, the “I DARE YOU” card, something inside me went off and before I could even think rationally about what I was saying, my mouth said, “I’ll do it!”
The ditch was at the end of the block, so I was able to get plenty of speed by starting way down at the other end of the street. Evel Knievel and the Dukes of Hazard were in their prime during early 80’s, so I was already imagining all the times that I had seen them make death defying jumps. Each and every jump the accomplished brought insanely cool glory.
We first had to build a ramp big enough that would provide the trajectory for my bike to fly over the large body of rushing water. Ok, it was a ditch, but in our minds this was as big as the Jordan River at flood stage and Joshua was fixing to lead his boys into the Promised Land!
The hype was building by the second as the rest of the bike gang was in awe that I had taken the dare hook, line, and sinker. I was feeding off their energy and my adrenaline was reaching an all-time high. A quick side note, we didn’t wear bike helmets in the 80’s!
As the moment of launch time drew near, I began my descent up the street. The ramp had been carefully prepared and measured with about a fifth graders level of brilliance. I had figured out the speed in my head I would need to reach to conquer the water!
The dare had pushed me over the edge. It caused me to close my eyes and jump, to take a risk that had little to no chance of coming to reality.
Let’s pause for a minute, because I have a question for you. Would you take a dare if God himself dared you? My next question is have you read Ephesians 3:20? In that verse the Creator of the universe does just that! It is a double dog dare if there ever was one. It is a call for an absolute crazy step of faith.
How cool is this translation.
20 Now glory be to God, who by his mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of—infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes. 21 May he be given glory forever and ever through endless ages because of his master plan of salvation for the Church through Jesus Christ. Ephesians 3:20 TLB
He starts by mentioning the mighty power (Glory) that He Himself has placed in the atoms inside each of us. He then DARES us to use it! Then in verse 21, He says once we go off, and yes He insinuates that we will succeed as a result of the power that He has put in us, all we are required to do is to give Jesus the Glory! Telling everyone about the impossible accomplishments that we are able to do through Jesus who gave us the strength.
How amazing and miraculously cool is that!
I think it is time to finish my story. Someone crank up R Kelly’s ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ to set the stage. I will never forget the rush that came over me as I was pumping my legs as hard and fast I could peddling my bike towards that ramp that day. I had the faith of a child, I had entered the zero doubt zone, the point of no turning back!
The feeling I had the second I hit the ramp and began my rocket trip was even better than I had dreamed. I completely believed and in that moment had achieved the ability to fly.
“Houston, we have a problem!” I’m not sure where the error occurred! If it was the trajectory of the ramp, the width of the ditch, or the lack of speed in my approach, but midway through my flight, I realized I was a complete idiot for taking that dare.
As the front wheel of my bike began to take a nose dive, I can imagine I felt something like Evel Knievel felt the day he tried to rocket bike over the Grand Canyon. As my bike entered the water and my front wheel came crashing into the far side of the ditch, I landed thankfully without a broken bone in the ditch to the sound of oohs instead of awes from my friends who had suckered me into being their entertainment for the day. Thank God we didn’t have TV shows like America’s Dumbest Crashes back then.
I got up out of the ditch and to my dismay realized that I had bent the frame of my bike and ending its short life. It was an epic fail and now the only thing running through my imagination was how my father was going to kill me for smashing up the bike he had worked so hard for me to enjoy.
There are two major differences in my story and the story I mentioned in Ephesians 3:20. In my story, I took a dare from a 10 year old. Who had zero ability to help me accomplish the dream. In the Ephesians 3:20 story, my Heavenly Father, the Great I AM, is the one DARING me to take a leap! Not only does He know what I am capable of, He placed the Power in me to accomplish anything He DARES me to do. He just ask me to Dream Bigger and to do things that will bring Glory to Jesus!
“Learn this well: unless you receive the revelation of the kingdom the same way a little child receives it, you will never be able to enter in.” Luke 18:17 TPT
Without the faith of a 10-year-old child you will never take or accomplish God’s dare. Looking back on that day I crashed my bike; I don’t regret one bit taking that dare. I realize God was preparing me and my faith for the greater things He had in store for me.
Photo by Jordan McGee on Unsplash