Let me take you back to the far off, glorious days of the Euro 96 Football Championships.
Throughout the tournament teams had played safe in extra time, and every period of extra time had been goal-less, with sides preferring caution rather than risk instant defeat. But then came the England vs. Germany semi-final. Both sides threw caution to the wind in search of the 'Golden Goal' and gave their all in a pulsating end to end half hour that had goalposts hit and open goals missed. We all know how it ended.
Euro 96 shows us two different attitudes to risk taking. We can play it safe, settling for low risk, low gain approach to life; or we can gamble, going for broke accepting the possibility that we may fall flat on our faces in the process. Playing safe and sticking with what we know is not necessarily a good thing. Risk taking is a normal and essential part of human growth and development. What if Peter and Andrew had answered Jesus' call by saying 'That's a tempting offer Jesus, but what about our boats? We've built up a nice little business here and you aren't even offering National Insurance stamps or a pension plan.'
