A Leap of Faith

I found this one on Pinterest.  It made me laugh, mostly because it is so true.  When I was a young mom, one of the boys really wanted to jump off the high dive at the local pool.  He was four years old and thought he was invincible.  The lifeguard explained to him that once he went up the ladder, he could not come back down.  There was only one way off, and that was over the edge of the diving board.  

I slipped into the water and swam out to the middle to wait for him to jump.  He proudly and bravely climbed the ladder and walked to the edge of the board.  Then he looked at the distance down to the water and promptly sunk to his belly and grabbed the board, screaming as loud as he could.  

The lifeguard went up the ladder and tried to coax him off the board and into the water.  My son wouldn't have anything to do with it.  So the lifeguard picked him up and unceremoniously dropped him right over the edge of the board into the water right in front of me.  I fished him out and helped him swim to the edge.  After an hour or so of jumping off the low dive, he went back up the ladder again and went off all by himself.  

I can't think of this story without a smile.  He was such a little guy and so determined to be just like the big kids.  He knew that he was going to do it.  He was determined to succeed in spite of his fears.  And finally, with a leap of faith, he went right off the board and into the water far below.  

Life can be like the diving board that my son faced that day.  Sometimes, we feel like we are surely ready to plunge to our death.  The waters of life, all the happiness and goodness seem far, far beyond our reach. We look toward it longingly, but can't seem to find the courage to do what we need to bring it within our grasp.  We hold tight to life as we have known it and don't want to let go.  Sometimes life has to get hard before we are willing to try something different.  We have to be willing to trust in Him to catch us in our fall.  He truly knows what we need and who we are.  He is always, always willing to catch us when we fall.  We just have to have to courage to trust in Him.