Safe AND effective????

I guess I don't know how to be both safe (comfortable) and effective (trusting) while serving God. Also, I've found recently that I often neglect knowing Jesus for trying to do things for him. As I venture into some unknown water during the next few years, which state of being will I choose? Safety or effectiveness? I listened to a great speaker the other day say that he hated the expression, "The safest place to be is in the center of God's will." His assertion was that God doesn't call us to be safe, nor is he overly concerned with our comfort. The speaker went on to use the life of the Apostle Paul as an example of someone living in the center of God's will, but his life was far from comfortable. It was dangerous wherever Paul went. He wrote that he had been beaten, robbed, stoned, and so. Paul became arguably the greatest apostle by living on the edge of danger--unafraid of suffering for Christ. My faith will take me places I may not want to go. I won't be comfortable or pampered. I like the expression I heard recently, "I don't know where I'm going; I just know what I'm going to do when I get there." I never want to neglect the main thing: loving, and being loved by, Jesus. Keep the first thing first. I want it to be dangerous wherever I go because I've got the Holy Spirit whispering in my ear constantly, and I'm too busy complying with the whisper to worry about the threat level. I've been comfortable for far too long.
"So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a little while,
'He who is coming will come and will not delay.
But my righteous one will live by faith.
And if he shrinks back,
I will not be pleased with him.'
But we not those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved."
Hebrews 10:35-39