Weekly Reflection: Making the Leap

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in me." - John 14:1

Click here to listen to this song about trusting in Jesus.

When on a recent vacation in Costa Rica, I went ziplining through the rainforest.  It was an unbelievable experience, especially for someone who isn't especially athletic or daring.

There I was, suspended 1500 feet above the ground, tied into a leather harness, and hanging by a T-bracket on an itty bitty wire!  All I had to do was let go, and the guides assured us we would be speedily whisked over to the other side....problem was, the other side was so far away we couldn't even see the landing platform! 

I finally understood what Kierkegaard called "the leap of faith."  I made my peace with God and I leapt into the arms of the unknowing. It was absolutely the most exhilarating experience of my life, but only because I was able to leap and trust...

I've come back to that experience a lot in my life: leap and trust.  We leap into marriage, into new jobs, into homes, into having children, into retirement...with unanswered questions, without a lot of facts, and with a good deal of trepidation and fear.

Sometimes, though, life isn't a leap of faith, but rather, we find ourselves pushed into situations: a challenging health diagnosis, a failed relationship, a battle with an addiction, family troubles, money problems....

Whether leaping or being pushed, the end result is the same: we find ourselves in a situation without all the answers...will we survive? Do I have what it takes? Can I do this? Will we get through this? Am I at the end of my rope?

Here comes the place of trust: the only reason I could actually leap off the top of that mountain was because somehow I really believed and trusted that the leather harness I was wearing would support my weight, and that the itty bitty wire was in fact strong enough to do what it was intended to do. 

It seems that the storms of our life are like that too. Can we really trust that God can do what God intends to do? Is God strong enough to support my weight?  Is God really God, and not just some fabrication of my imagination?

When life gets really hard and scary and everything starts falling apart around me, can I really believe that God is in control? That my life matters enough to God so that God isn't going to let me fall? And that when it's time for me to take that final and ultimate leap of faith, I am only jumping into the loving arms of my Father who has been waiting to hold me in eternity?

Now pray....