Faith = Risk

The speaker at ICCM this year, Joseph Vijayam, talked about risk-taking as Christians and computer people. He equated risk taking to having faith. I agree with the comparison, but also realize I am weak in both areas. I never take risk. Even my parents have described me as overly cautious. In the same way, I am cautious with God. I'm not particularly presumptious, and I don't often ask God for big, impossible things. Or I haven't recently. I used to.
It was great talking to the fascinating people here this weekend. They are people who know how to take risk. They have put their careers on the line and trusted God for thier finances, and some have ventured to other countries and put themselves at physical risk to do what they do. They face problems we don't dream of in the US: inconsistent electricity, dirt-slow internet connections, if a connection at all, ethical dilemmas of finding legal software and videos where pirating is rampant... it was so interesting to hear these men and women use thier God-given creativity to work around these problems and expand His kingdom. Really cool stuff.
I'm not sure if God's calling me to missions just yet. A guy at lunch said he felt that everyone was called to missions. I didn't agree, but I didn't say so. I guess I've got 2 years of classes left to figure out where God wants me, so I don't have to be sure yet. I know wherever I end up, I'll be serving God.
The reason I'm at least considering missions is this: My heart is for equipping- for giving people the tools to do what they are gifted to do most effectively.. This started in late high school, when I saw my leaders in Student Venture who were AWESOME with building relationships with students, sharing the gospel, and discipling students, get totally bogged down with the little administrative stuff of keeping track of finances, putting together newsletters, finding phone numbers and addresses... stuff that I could so easily do for them, or write or train them on tools that would make the extra stuff take less time so they could spend more time doing what God made them to, and therefore make the overall ministry more effective. So, yeah, equipping people to do what God made them to is exciting for me. Whether I do that full time, as a tentmaker, or as a volunteer outside of my day job, I don't know, but I do know I must do it, for that is what God has made ME to do. :)