Belay On

Why am I standing on the edge of a cliff?

My mind raced as I gripped the rappelling rope.  It was securely attached to a tree in front of me.  "On belay?" I called down.  "Belay on," came the reply, telling me that my belayer had a firm grip on the other end.  I was strapped into the harness, and I had already seen several other people descend successfully.

"You can do it," Jerry said.  "Just lean back.  The rope will hold you."

I took a deep breath and backed slowly toward the cliff again.  I had been trying, unsuccessfully, to get over the edge of the cliff for nearly half an hour already.  I could get right to the edge of the cliff.  I could look over.  I could turn around.  But those two small, last steps demanded that I let go of my sense of balance, lean backwards, and fully trust the rope. 

There would be a moment where I would feel that I was falling, and then the rope would tighten.  I would be held securely, and I could lower myself down the face of the cliff to the ground below. 

I inched backward, leaning, until the moment I felt my balance begin to go.   My whole life's experience told me that if I leaned backwards on the edge of a cliff, I would plummet to my death.  Shakily, I pulled myself upright again.  I just couldn't do it.  I couldn't get past the falling.

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I grew up as an Adventist, and I was baptized on my eleventh birthday, but it was really the ministry of the early apostles that made me fall in love with Jesus.

See there? Falling in love. We all know that loving anyone, trusting anyone is breathtaking, dizzying, risky.

It was my junior year of academy, and I had signed up for my required Bible class: Studies in Acts with Glenn Russell.  My previous Bible classes, though they had had the occasional interesting discussion here or there, had largely been an exercise in staying awake and alert enough to write down the correct facts to memorize for the test.

Completely unprepared for the amazing adventure that awaited me, I walked into my first day of class.  From the beginning, I was captivated by these men and women who had walked with Jesus, learned from him, and in cooperation with him, turned the world upside down.  The power with which they taught, healed, loved God and each other swept me off my feet.

The rude, ambitious, mostly uneducated disciples of the gospels made their lives completely available to Christ's grace, his love, and his calling.  The transformation of their lives, their communities, and the world's history could not be accounted for by anything else than supernatural, miraculous power.

With nothing but the Spirit of God holding them, they stepped with complete faith into a radical commitment to carry on the work that Jesus started.  They plunged unreservedly, holding nothing back, into the adventures, conversations, miracles, and even prisons to which he called them. I sensed a hunger growing in my soul, too, to connect with the God behind that powerful love.

The following year, I signed up for a Bible class called, enigmatically, "Christian Nurture."  It was in this class, learning from Gary Burns, that I saw first-hand what God can and will do with a bunch of flawed, egocentric teenagers who open their lives to him just a little.  As my classmates and I worked together with each other and God to introduce him to others in our school and community, I experienced his power to create, redeem, and transform.  Together, we experienced the miracles of trust, faith, prayer, and true community.

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I managed, finally, after two separate attempts and nearly an hour standing on the edge of the cliff, to focus more on the rope than on my fear.  Dangling in mid-air, halfway down the cliff next to Jerry, who had been cheering me on with relentless patience and good humor the entire time, I felt an incredible sense of both elation and relief.  As soon as my feet touched the ground at the bottom of the cliff, Jerry sent me back to the top.  "Do it again right away," he urged.  "It gets easier every time."

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I'm still not a great rappeller.  I think too much about myself, my balance, my fear; I want to maintain control too much.  Part of the problem is that I don't do it often; every time, I have to renegotiate the tension between my worldview and the rope.

Since my senior year of high school, I've found myself on more than one spiritual cliff, too.  Sometimes I panic, pull myself upright, do my own thing.  Sometimes, I lean back, trust that God will catch me, and take the plunge.  He's never let me fall yet.  It gets easier every time.