Tethers

When people ask me about my job, I typically tell them that I hang out in trees all day.  Today was one of those days, meaning that I was stationed on the high ropes course for 2 classes in the afternoon.  One of the things we do during the "upload" (which is what we call the time where we give instructions) is tell the kids what they should hold onto while they are out on the course.  My particular phrase usually sounds something like this, "So while you are on the course you can hold on to these wires above you, you can hold onto your tethers, or you can hold on to nothing.  If you choose to hold onto your tethers, the higher you hold the more stable and secure you will be, if you grab on down lower, you might feel wobbly and unstable."  Now, we don't have a script, but after you give these instructions a few hundred times, the speech starts to get memorized.  So I say those same words, almost exactly, every single time.  Seriously, I sound like a robot.

Nothing was different about today on the course.  I gave the upload like usual, except this time, when I said those words, something hit me.  I'm not sure what exactly, but I do know that I stumbled over the next few lines of instructions because my brain was going on a journey.  A new adventure that those words had never brought me into before.  Today, for some reason, those words did something to me.  So much so that my mood was instantly changed and my heart was at rest, no longer feeling stretched and strained and twisted like it does so often these days.  I heard myself say those words and in a fraction of a second this is the train my thoughts traveled away upon.

I wondered how different things would be if I took my own advice, holding on as high as I possibly could.  Not to my tethers, the ropes course is something that doesn't scare me in the least, but to God.  He is what is going to put my heart at rest and He is the only stability and sanity that is going to last.  What if I held on higher and higher, letting Him be my security?  What if I stopped trying to balance myself and simply reached up high, just like He calls me to do?  So often I try to figure things out logically.  I want answers and reasons and plans and explanations that make sense.  I want to fix things and I want control.  But what if I did what I ask these kids to do every day?  What if I stepped out in faith, grasping onto those metaphorical tethers as high as I possibly could, and just let myself go?  Leaving logic and reasoning behind, what would happen?

It amazes me just how much God can teach me in everyday things.  Today He reached right into what is probably one of the most mundane and repetitive things that I do and called me to Himself.  He used words I say every single day to penetrate to my very core, dealing with the instability and chaos that has defined my emotional life recently.  The higher I hold, the more stable and secure I will be.  Such simple words, but such deeply profound truth!