What if I fall?
“What if I fall mummy?”
“You won’t fall pet, sure you have a harness” I said
“I’m scared mummy.”
“That’s ok” I said. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but you can’t fall, you’ll be attached to the rope and the harness”
This was a conversation that took place under an aerial rope course. My daughter had mastered the low rope course and was contemplating the high course. Now might be an appropriate time to point out that the high rope course was somewhere around 15 feet in the air. Needless to say she decided to head for the soft play instead. So I harnessed up and headed up for a wee nosy round the course. I’d be round it in no time I was sure.
I’m five foot four inches tall. So my eyes were somewhere around 20 feet off the ground. All of a sudden the course looked somewhat more challenging, but I mean I was harnessed in, and the harness was attached to a rope that was locked into a guide rail above me. I crossed the first walkway with relative ease, getting a feel for the ropes and the guide line. My next challenge was a single rope. I tentatively stepped onto the rope and very quickly came to realisation that this was a lot harder than I had anticipated. Oh and I was quite wrong, I most definitely could fall! Granted I couldn’t fall far because of the harness and rope, but I realised what I had told my daughter was actually wrong. Oh and on that note there is not a mission a six year old could have done this course! It was terrifying. I kept telling myself trust the harness, trust the ropes, but it didn’t stop my heart thudding in my chest, or skipping a beat when the ropes beneath my feet wobbled.
Sometimes that’s what it’s like to be a Christian. You see, even though we know God is with us, holding fast on to us, it doesn’t mean sometimes we don’t feel scared. It doesn’t mean that we don’t slip from time to time. We face choices on what path to take and sometimes all of them are hard. Sometimes our steps are shaky, tentatively feeling our way, unsure of whether we will make it safely to the other side. Being a Christian isn’t a free pass through life. In fact, as Christians we are called to make the difficult choices, to step out in faith. It’s not supposed to be easy. We could go so far as to say if our journey as a Christian is easy perhaps we are not putting ourselves out of our comfort zone for Christ.
Jesus himself said “I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!” (John 16:33c | NRSV)
Being a Christian doesn’t make it easy, but it makes it possible. My soul has been given a harness and a guide rope that’s held fast by Jesus Christ himself. I just need to remember to trust His ropes and step out in faith, safe in the knowledge that He who holds my heart has conquered the world.
If I didn’t feel like I could fall, I wouldn’t need to have faith. More than this, I know already that my faith has sustained me through some of the ropiest days of my life.
Have you challenged your faith lately? Have you gone out on the ropes of life, unsteady and unsure, but with faith that He will not let you fall further than you need to? We can always fall, but he will always catch us.
We just need to fall into faith.
