Free Falling

Have you ever been rock wall climbing before?  If the climbing itself wasn’t treacherous and terrifying enough, it’s by far the easiest part.  You don’t have to look down while you climb up.  You don’t have to see how far you might fall.  You just have to reach up towards the next hand hold.  Look up, ignore the thoughts of plummeting to the ground below.  Simply grab the next hold.  And the next.

But then, you’ve reached as far as you can go.  Your arms are burning, you’re tired, it’s time to go down. How do you go down?  No problem, just let go of the wall.

I remember the first time I did this and my unwillingness to remove my tight grasp on the holds.  The person below who was belaying for me kept saying, just let go!  “Let go of the wall and lean back!”  I’m sorry, what?

“No, I’ve got you!  I’ve got you.”  the belayer said.

“No you don’t.  I’ve got me.  Don’t you see I’m holding myself up against the wall?” I snarled back.

After a series of arguments on my side, the belayer somehow convinced me that it was in my best interest to let go of the wall.  It wasn’t a graceful let go, mind you, it looked a lot like a cat climbing a wall. Scratching fingers, slamming limbs, frantic expletives. But then, you know what happened?  I got down safetly.

I let go and leaned back and with a gasp of fear mixed with exhilaration I felt that as I let go, he indeed had me.  

That is what faith feels like.

It goes against everything we feel in our flesh.  It feels unnatural. It sometimes looks irrational, unreasonable, unsafe. It feels foreign.  It is simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating.   I don’t believe faith is the absence of fear.  

Taking this step towards long-term missions, without knowing every detail about how ‘it will all look like in the everyday’ feels a lot like letting go of that wall.  I want to grab hold, take control, stress about it, worry, wonder… in.but I can hear God saying “I’ve got you, let go.”

And indeed, He does.

One comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *