So the question is, if I do whatever God wants me to do — get saved, give him my time or my treasure or my talent, go wherever he may send me — will he keep me safe?

We want to know. We don’t want to be unsafe. It’s kind of dumb to wish that bad things would happen to us, so it seems smart to want God to guarantee our safety. We can even make some verses say God will never let anything bad happen to us, for instance, Psalm 91:10.

But consider this: maybe God’s idea of safe is different from our idea of safe. Remember Mr. Beaver in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia saying, “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he’s not safe, but he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you!”

Nothing can permanently harm you if you are God’s child. But in the short term, God’s children go through many dangers.

Guess what? The ground you’re standing on is rotating around the center of the earth at a speed of 1,000 miles an hour while hurtling in orbit at 67,000 miles an hour around a 9,800 degree giant ball of flaming gasses churning out the power of 2 billion large nuclear power plants. Talk to anyone you want to and they’ll tell you that this planet is going to fry or freeze or flood. And none of us are getting out of here alive. Don’t be frightened, but pay attention.

It may not be entirely safe to be a Christian, but short term safety is not God’s promise. God promises to always keep us in his care. Nothing can reach us except what he allows. He will be with us and never leave us. I’m not saying I understand pain and suffering and persecution. But I know God is good and that he’s in charge of the universe.

I’ve put my life in Jesus’ hands, and I know that he will bring me through whatever comes today or in the future.

This is why he told Martha in John 11:25-26, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

I believe Jesus.