Thursday, October 6, 2016

how jumping off a cliff taught me to trust Jesus more

I found myself on top of the cliff for a few reasons.

1. I trusted my friend who coaxed me up there with my life.
2. My adventurous spirit got the best of me as I was watching the other crazy people jump.
3. I was probably crazy.

But there I was, on top of the cliff, remembering everything my parents told me when I was younger, "If your friend jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?" Of course, my answer was no.
But here I was, on top of a cliff, beside a beautiful waterfall, preparing to jump, because my friend told me to.

What an odd sense of dread and exhileration overcame me as I stood approximately 40 feet above the water. There was one rock in which I was supposed to leap from. And it was small. The water seemed so much further away then when I had been on the bottom looking up.

After a good 8 minutes of battling back and forth between hating myself for climbing up here and eager all at the same time, I was overcome with a barely an ounce of courage

and

             I
                               J
                                 U
                                     M
                                          P
                                              E
                                                  D.

How marvelous and dreadful it was to be falling weightlessly through the air.
How intense the impact when the water smacked my body.
How fearful I became when I was sure I would never find the surface.
How deeply happy I was when I breathed in for what felt like the first time in years.

Oddly enough, A few days later, someone encouraged me:
"God is putting a cliff before you and he wants you to trust him unconditionally and jump."
This person did not know that I had jumped off a cliff a few days previously.
But God knew, and certainly he was going to take advantage of this analogy.

I"m on the edge of the cliff and I'm part way between an overwhelming dread and a small ounce of courage. At the same time, I'm falling weightlessly through the sky and at the bottom barely breathing. It's a cicular pattern in my head, this cliff.

And yet, The LORD is here. He is the water encapsulating me at the bottom. He is my hope that I will not die and he is my encouragement at the top promising me how worth it this will be.

I don't know what your cliff is. Maybe it's like mine and you've already jumped and you hated it the first time and loved it all at the same time, but God is asking you to jump again. Maybe it's encountering grief and anger. Maybe it's forgiving the one who victimized you to the point of terror. Maybe, it is learning independence. Maybe it is loving deeply.
Your cliff could be many things, but the one thing I've learned about jumping off cliffs (with water at the bottom) is that thy are always worth it. You will always have a story and there is always reason to trust the ONE who calls you there.


Deep calls to deep
    at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
    have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
    and at night his song is with me,
    a prayer to the God of my life.



No comments:

Post a Comment