Principle 2: Risk and suffering for the sake of the Kingdom are completely worthwhile:

Americans are obsessed with safety. Jesus was not. At least not by the same definition. I found I had some time to reflect as I was laying on the ice with a broken back outside of a fuel soaked plane, having somehow just dragged my co-worker away from the wreckage. I would have 6 hours or so before medical transport would begin and I remember thinking, “This is an acceptable outcome for doing what God called us to do.” Why? Because I have seen that God has a different definition of safety.
Take a look at what Paul says in his last days as he gives his charge to Timothy, his companion in Missions and “spiritual son.” II Tim 3:10-11
“You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.”
Then later II Tim 4:18
“The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
Wait a minute. How can you endure something and be rescued from it at the same time? If I remember right, Timothy was living in Lystra when Paul first picked him up as a travel companion. That very same city where, on a previous visit, people pursued Paul from two other cities and stoned him to the point where they thought he was dead and drug him away. But then Paul got up and walked back into the city. Timothy knew these stories because he was there.
My American understanding of safety is all about mitigating all the risks we possibly can. What is more important than the health and wellbeing of our bodies anyway?
Paul’s understanding of “Kingdom Safety” is “God will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.” I may come skidding in sideways, in a ball of flame and carrying a lifetime of scars, but I’ll arrive home safely.
The difference between the American Ideal of safety and the Kingdom version seems to have a lot to do with where “home” is for you. There clearly is something more important than physical safety.
Now, am I saying that we shouldn’t mitigate risks at all? No, that’s not the point. There are many senseless accidents that don’t need to happen. Generally speaking, loving people well means protecting them from harm. The point here is that there is an acceptable level of risk for kingdom work and it’s up to us to know what level God is calling us to and having the courage / trust to follow him into that. I personally, don’t regret one bit taking the risks we did on that trip because I know I was doing what the Lord was asking me to do. There are a lot of things I could have been afraid of but I choose to bear this in mind.
“Fear God and keep his commands, for this is the duty of all mankind,” Ecclesiastes 12:13
And “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the Glory that will be revealed in us.”