I’m days late for my connections in Moscow. But here I am, and I have to transfer to another airport by bus. Two problems: there are six airports, and I don’t speak Russian. Nor can I find anyone who speaks English. Thirty buses are waiting for customers and I have absolutely no idea what bus I should take. I pray, and realize I simply have to get on board the right one. How will God let me know which one it is?

Risks. Why do we take them? Why do some students take big risks and others avoid them at all costs? This isn’t an exclusive reality for students only, but it is true that during your college years many decisions that you make will affect the course of your life: what career you’ll take, whom you’ll marry, what education you’ll pursue, where you’ll end up living—and the list goes on. Many of these decisions are made during your college years and they all involve risk. Risk of making the wrong choice, risk of being rejected, risk of failing—even the risk of not taking risks!

Life is full of risk. In fact, life is risk. And where is God in this lumpy landscape of risk?

God is the author of risk. He took a huge risk in creating the world—only to have humankind reject his ways. He then took another huge risk by sending his Son so that the world would be reconciled to him. And the world has been reconciled—yet daily the world continues to reject him. And God continues to subject himself to the risk of rejection. Why? Because in God’s heart, there is always the hope that someone might respond to his love. God doesn’t shy away from risk.

All sizes and shapes

There are all kinds of risks. They can be small (Should I leave my umbrella at home today, even though it looks like rain?). Risks may be hurtful (If I walk into this group of strangers, will I feel stupid and painfully alone?). Risks can be huge (If I accept this grad school now, will all my other options be permanently shut down?). Risks come in so many forms. And everyone has different thresholds of how much uncertainty they can tolerate. By nature, I’m a risk-taker. I tend to take big risks. At some moments, my risk-taking ways are the very thing that’s needed and are dead-on, but at other times, my risk-taking ways are nothing but a hazard and a nuisance. There is a man at my church who is terrified of taking risks. His cautious manner is sometimes very useful and helpful, but at other times, his caution has a negative influence. The right moment for a risk is a big factor in gauging its effectiveness.

When it comes to individuals, there isn’t a right or wrong amount of risk-taking ability. The issue is what you’ve been given by God and how you will use it. The parable of the talents is a good example (see Matthew 25:14–30 or Luke 19). Three servants are each given money by their master, who is about to leave on a trip. While the master is gone, the servant with two talents earns two more, the servant with ten talents earns ten more, but one servant hides his talent. The master returns and confronts him as a coward. The servant explains his lack of risk-taking by saying, “I knew you were a hard taskmaster, reaping where you do not sow.” It is his fear and indecision to have faith and take risks that put him in poor favor with the master. Putting the talent in the bank to earn interest would have been a better investment than doing nothing, says the master. Which servant are you?

God’s power in risk

Risk coupled with faith is powerful. Finding God and being able to discern his voice are key to knowing what risks he wants you to take. Sensing his leading as we take risks is a powerful experience. And again, the risks that God may call you to are wide and varied. They can range from sensing God’s call to do a cross-cultural mission, to being led to get involved with a campus outreach, to hearing God’s urging to speak with a friend about Jesus. These are radical risks. They push you to the edge of the cliff, and in the moment of “now or never” you experience God. Things happen. Conversations click. Circumstances come together. In the mix of uncertainty and potential chaos, God reveals himself and you experience his reality.

But what if you don’t experience something dynamic? Perhaps the cross-cultural mission was difficult, or the campus outreach was costly, or your friend turned you away. Was God absent? Was the risk not worth it? Going to the cliff’s edge with risk and not feeling a wonderful experience of God’s power and presence can be equally powerful. In the book of Acts, Peter had days where three thousand people accepted Christ, but he also had days where he was thrown in prison. Did the outcome deter Peter’s risk-taking faith? No. Peter was the water-walking believer. His goal was not success, but obedience to God. Mother Teresa once said, “God does not demand that I be successful. God demands that I be faithful.” And faithfulness involves leaning forward into risk.

Risk is good

Risk forces us to come to terms with ourselves. It challenges us to ask what we are relying on. Is it our own ability? Our own self-sufficiency? By going beyond our comfort zones, we have no choice but to look to God. And looking to God opens the possibility of risk-taking faith. It is that place—once we say yes to God and turn the keys of control over to him—where we can say heart to heart, “Yes, Lord,” even if it will be painful. Having faith when you’ve been hurt is a huge risk. Why? Because the hurt could happen all over again. And that’s exactly when faith begins—trusting God against the odds—even with the possibility of hurt happening. This kind of risk is not easy. But it is good.

I’ve done lots of crazy things where I’ve been hurt by my risks. I’ve been foolish and I’ve failed. But I’ve found that taking risks is a necessary (and exciting!) way to experience God. In the crucible of risk-taking faith, God has me where he can deal with me. He exposes my fears and insecurities. He cuts a new experience of faith into raw places within my soul. It’s like a chick pecking its way through an eggshell. The chick would die if you cracked the egg open and helped it out. It’s only through pecking its way out that the chick is strengthened and is able to sustain its life outside the egg. Likewise, we are strengthened as we struggle and grope to find our way in faith. Through listening carefully for God and then boldly stepping forward, God transforms our hearts. We are changed. It’s an exciting place to be.

Russian Adventure

One of my zaniest moments of faith happened a couple of years ago, when I was traveling in Russia. I was making a pastoral trip to meet with some IFES “year teams” who were working short terms in student ministry. I had made several of these kinds of trips, and this time I had been asked to take a trip to Rostov, Russia.

I hadn’t been there before, but I knew the team members and I was happy to help IFES. However, it was one of those trips where everything goes wrong—absolutely everything. Before I had even left Canada, the Canadian customs in Toronto made a drug bust on the KLM plane that I was about to board. Of course, this caused a huge delay with the departure, which resulted in an extremely late arrival in Amsterdam, which then caused me to miss my connecting flight to eastern Europe. The circumstances continued to tumble down like dominoes. I ended up hop-scotching across ­Europe on various flights before I finally arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania. No one was at the airport to meet me because I was days late by this point.

Two days later, after a little bit of recovery, my journey continued on to Rostov, Russia. I had to make a connection in Moscow. Now Moscow is a big city of nine million people. There are six airports in Moscow with a central bus station called the aerovokzal, where you can make your connection to the next airport. Once again, no one was at the airport to pick me up even though earlier I had made a few calls trying to tell people when I might arrive, and I had to decide which connecting bus to get on. I don’t speak Russian and I couldn’t find anyone who spoke English. I was challenged. I looked down a line of thirty buses waiting for customers and I had absolutely no idea what bus I should take. No clue. So I got on a bus and I prayed, “Lord, give me peace if this is the right bus.” I waited and didn’t feel good about the bus, so I got off. I did this several times (what else could I do?), until I looked down the row to the last bus and decided to try it. I got on the already crowded bus and made my ridiculous prayer again. Hmm, I thought, I feel good about this one. So I sat down and I waited.

Suddenly a young man from IFES got on the bus and started calling my name: “Buff! Buff!” I waved to him from the back of the bus, and he jostled his way through the crowd to me. “I’m so sorry I’m late, Buff. I’ve had a crazy morning. Hey, how did you know this was the right bus?” I started laughing. Out of thirty buses, I had picked the right one.

My friend took me to the right airport and I made my way to the gate for Rostov. Once again, my flight was late—four hours late. When it was finally time to board, the flight attendant took a Korean man and me out to the tarmac. There were hundreds of Aeroflot airplanes. We wandered along—whimsically looking at one plane and then the next. When we finally reached a large plane, the flight attendant pointed and said, “Da.” “Da,” I nodded back to her. I ­wasn’t going to argue. I boarded the plane and took my seat. The condition of the plane was crazy. My seat-belt was broken. And there was a hole in my head-rest. A flat metal bar lay at my feet and I kicked it under my chair. The carpet down there had buckled in several waves. So I sat in the chair and ran on the spot to force the carpet flat again. Eventually, the flight took off and we literally went straight up. I looked across the aisle and there was the Korean man that I had met earlier. He was praying furiously. I tapped his arm and smiled. I nodded to him and folded my hands, imitating prayer. He smiled back. He took out his business card, which read: “The Evangelical Love Church of Moscow.” I gave him my Inter-Varsity business card. I had found a friend.

The plane ride was wild. The flight attendant had a black see-through blouse on. As is typical in Europe, the men ordered drinks by the dozen. At one point, a woman tried to open the washroom door, only to have a cascade of suitcases fall out onto her head. They had been stacked to the ceiling of the washroom. The flight attendant was yelling at the person. It was all quite bizarre.

Next, the pilot came on the loudspeaker and said something in Russian. Everyone groaned and then started to laugh. I wondered what the pilot said. I had no idea.

I was soon to discover what the pilot had communicated. He had told the passengers that the plane was going to make a stop in Krosnodar before it continued on to Rostov. And when we stopped, I got off, thinking I was already in Rostov. I thought I was on a direct flight, but Rostov was still 300 kilometers away.

I pushed my way through the crowded and dimly lit terminal at nine o’clock on that Friday. Everywhere, insistent taxi drivers were yelling, “Taxi! Taxi!” Of course, no one was there to meet me. And I had absolutely no clue where I was. As I looked around, trying to figure out where I was and what was happening, I saw the Korean Love Church man and I started walking toward him. He spoke little Russian and no English. I spoke no Russian or Korean. We kept smiling and nodding at each other with an odd intimacy that strangers sometimes find while traveling. Both of us slowly realized that we needed to get out of the airport. “You. Me. Taxi,” I said as I karate-chopped the air. With these wild waving hand gestures, I desperately communicated that we should share a taxi. He smiled anxiously and nodded. So we found a taxi driver and asked for the price. $150 U.S.!? Where on earth were we? But to be truthful, I would have paid 500 bucks to get out of there. I panicked. I prayed. And I got into the back seat of the Russian taxi.

At the last moment before leaving, our taxi-driver decided to make some more money by having a Russian couple join us. So my Korean Love Church friend was in the front seat of this dilapidated taxi and the Russian couple and I sat in the back. The taxi’s axle and the chassis were not aligned, so we had this strange sensation of riding sideways as we drove off into the Russian night.

It wasn’t long before I realized that this couple was becoming extremely amorous with each other. Extremely. Yes, they made love in the back seat of the taxi, right beside me! I looked out the window, pretending I wasn’t there. As things got even steamier, condensation trickled down the window. I kept thinking, this is not in my Inter-Varsity job description! Ménage-à-trois in the back seat of a Russian taxi, definitely not in my job description. Soon they had made love twice. This crazy taxi ride was four hours long, and they didn’t quit. We eventually arrived in Rostov at 2 a.m. I found my housing, staggered into the room I was to stay in and discovered a little note that read, “Praise God, Buff, if you’re reading this. You made it!” I had made it. Hallelujah! And yes, the pastoral visit went very well after that.

Dancing on the edge

Believe it or not, God did have a purpose to this wild adventure. A number of months earlier, a friend of mine had been killed in Moscow. It was a terrible situation of theft and murder. My heart had closed down to the city of Moscow. God could exist in every place on this planet, but surely not in Moscow. Bad things can happen anywhere, but Moscow had taken the life of my friend. God couldn’t really be there. Despite my terrible pain, I needed to forgive this city and experience risk at the heart of my fear. In the process of this zany adventure, God was challenging me with who he is. It was as if he were saying, “Buff, you can dance on the edge of the cliff and I am still there.”

Theologically, I don’t fully understand how this all fits together, but I do know that taking risks when God is in them leads us to a deeper knowledge of him. Dancing on the edge of a cliff is not something I easily recommend, but I do believe that faith-filled risks lead us to a deeper experience of Jesus. And sometimes we need to dance at the edge of the cliff.

Buff Cox is the director of Inter-Varsity World Services in Canada, which is the mission department of InterVarsity/Canada. Previously, she was the campus worker for ten years at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. She is married with three children and also an ordained Baptist minister, as is her husband, Steve. (By the way, her real name is not Buff—it’s Elizabeth, but the childhood nickname has stayed with her.)