So I've got an interesting story from this past weekend at Boys Camp. I was reading a friends blog post about taking risk in order to succeed and this came to mind.
We were at the Herman's Pond (with 125 high school boys and 60 counselors/servants) and I spent most of the time there on the 12 ft high platform diving into the water. I would watch the other guys do back-flips, gainers, front-flips, and all that jazz over and over again. Not that I was content with that, but I would never try them myself because I had never done one and was worried that I would wind up doing a belly flop or face plant into the lake and end my life....
So after watching this for half the afternoon, I finally psyched myself up for trying a back-flip. After all, according to the Stickling boys, that’s the easiest one to do from this high (apparently, the natural motion of your body pretty much takes care of the flip and you just jump and pull your knees up). As I stood backwards at the ledge, awaiting certain death, I could barely bring myself to do it. I’ll admit I was definitely nervous and shaky. But I leaned back, bent my knees, jumped, tucked my knees, and to my surprise pulled it off! Needless to say, I was thrilled. It may not have been text book, but I didn’t flop! So the next few jumps I spent “perfecting” that back-flip.
Now the guys had also been doing back-dives. Once again, according to Joel S. all you have to do is keep your body straight, fall backwards, and you’ll make a perfect backwards dive into the water. So with my new found courage, I tried that too. Once again, success! So I tried that a couple more times to where I was comfortable with it.
Now some would say that I should have just been content with my new skills and called it a day. But there was way too much testosterone in the air for that kind of attitude! I was on a role and under the peer pressure, decided to attempt a gainer. Now this is where you jump off the platform forwards and then do a back-flip which is scary for most people because you risk hitting the back of your head on the platform. So as the boat was waiting to take me back to the other side of the lake at the end of the day, I attempted it in front of 20 guys and totally bombed it.....landing on my back….flop...failure.....but I did have the satisfaction of trying it, and the respect of the guys knowing that prior to that day, I have never even done a back-flip.
The theme of the weekend was trust. I was given the opportunity to trust what those guys told me would work. I watched them do it. They told me exactly what I had to do. All I had to do was trust that it would work and then trust that I could get myself to do it. This guaranteed me a non-belly-flop performance. Needless to say, perfection did not occur on the first try, but seldom does it ever. Similarly, God gives us his Word, and asks us to trust Him that if we do what He says, it will work and we won’t flop. We can take comfort to know that as we trust in Him, and apply the Word to our lives, we may not achieve perfection the first try, but we will learn from it and grow more like Him.
So just as I watched those guys jump off the platform and do their “perfect” gainers, so we watch Christ and strive to imitate His perfect example. One of these days we’ll know what it’s like to make that splashless entry……
Trusting in Him,
JAE
3 comments:
a gainer from a standing position is actually really hard to do. i was on the diving team and even i'd have a hard time pulling that off. wish i could have been there to see it.
Actually, I took two steps into it, but none the less, quickly realized that it was a much more challenging maneuver than I had anticipated....
Hey, thanks for the comment you left on my blog! I'm glad you were able to relate to it. Hope all goes well as you prepare to come to Brazil! Maybe our paths will cross sometime, we make it to Santarem every once in a while.
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