JUMP IN

Life in general is always challenging.  Some challenges shake us right up, make us stand up and say, 'I'm not ready for this'  others get us fired up, the challenge drives us and causes us to step forward loving the risk!  Some challenges just eat our brains and we despise every moment of them, and then when we look back we see that it was for good and that we have grown or been nourished through it in some way. 

I once took a bungy jump, I only did it because my elder sister had done one previously, for me that was the challenge.  I did not want to be upstaged by my sister (who by all accounts - and this was my thought process at the time - was not very sporty) and so if she could do it, then so could I.  They weighed me (to ensure the length of the bungy cord was correct) then tied me up, they tied on my trainers... I didn't want them landing in the water never to be seen again! They shuffled me to the edge like a penguin.  I stood at the edge.. then I realised, my sister was no longer the challenge, the challenge had moved up a level.  I was driven to jump because I didn't want to lose the competition I had created in my head, winning was the only option!  I also looked down and saw metres and metres of drop... 47 metres ...then I looked at my feet, tied up with a large elastic band, suddenly the challenge of jumping because my sister had done so before, didn't seem so important.  The oversized elastic band took all my attention, and then the drop, and then my feet, and just as I was looking to check if I was actually attached, I heard them say 'jump'. 

Have you ever had that conversation, where you do something your not supposed to and your excuse is that someone else told you to...and the wiser person tells you, "If they told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?" ...

My bungy moment was the very oposite of my answer, they told me to jump and I just threw myself off the edge.  It was horrible.  In a dream when you fall and wake up, that feeling?  Know the one?  That feeling happened, only I didn't wake up I just kept falling! Only it got better, past that point where I didn't have a clue what was going on and my stomach had ended up where my brains were meant to be, it was exhilarating, I was buzzing.  I knew that I had got past the part that was just too much to bear and now I could enjoy it.

My point is this, sometimes we see a challenge, but the real challenge lies at the edge of the risk we're about to take.  The real challenge is not deciding to do something, but perservering through the times we don't really understand it.  The real challenge is God telling us to jump, and just responding to His call! The real challenge is not the one we expected at all.  Often the challenge we need to overcome is in our heart, deal with things we have not dealt with. Forgive people we have not forgiven.  Let go of our pride.  Seek out that one things that is bothering us.  Then give it all to God, humbling ourselves and carry on.  Sometimes the challenge is not the road ahead, its how we're walking it.

It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out; it's the grain of sand in your shoe.
Robert.W.Service

Blessings
Soph x