I had an interesting week once again!! Things have been pretty normal around the property just working on the base doing yard work making the property looking as nice as possible, I got to lead a bible study, and hang out once again with friends. On Saturday night 3 of my friends (all in our 20's) and I had a nice home cooked meal and then decided to go for a drive. It was dark and a PERFECT night. So my boy Ernice took us all around and we finally stopped on Northshore road and pulled over. It is a fairly busy road but nothing to extreme for the 45 mins we were pulled over we saw maybe 20 cars. Anyways we had the stereo pumping worship music and the 4 of us were just hangin out looking at the glowing neighboring islands in the distance, staring at the MILLIONS of stars in the sky and in complete Awe of the Lord! It was incredible!! Then we drove into Frederiksted and went to the cruise ship pier! The pier is a popular fishing and swimming place. It is maybe 12-15 feet above the water and its probably 35 feet deep. So Ernice, Cherlyn, and myself are all jacked up for jumping and swimming even though none of us are prepared for it. It was a spontaneous thing. But our dear friend Miracle is hesitant, not wanting to jump at all thinking we're joking. Then one by one we jump and she is still shaking her head in disbelief and saying NO we're crazy. So I climb up the ladder and tell her it will be fine she can jump, she's also not to excited about jumping in the dress she is wearing either. So we give her a Tshirt to put on over her dress and I grabbed her hand telling her I'll jump with her. And after hesitating FOREVER, her having a death grip on my hand, and me convincing her that I won't let her go at all she got the courage to jump in. (I just got circulation back in my hand yesterday!) She later jumped in one more time holding onto me and then once alone!! I tell you all that to give you the idea of how scared she was. As many of us might be, jumping into deep water, at night off a high pier. Sounds crazy I'm sure, but the water was crystal clear and it was completely safe! So in that whole time, God began to speak to me. He began to use the scenario to relate it to my life of faith. How there are many times in our lives where He brings us to an edge and tells us to jump. Many times we aren't expecting to even be standing on that edge but yet we are. He tells us to have faith in him and step out of our comfort zone and trust him. Many times it is the scariest thing in the world. Much like Miracle, she had never jumped into any type of water, not even a swimming pool! She was freaked. And the only thing that gave her confidence enough to jump was the fact that I would hold onto her all the way down and hold onto her in the water. She had to trust in me before she could allow herself to jump out of control into the water.
God is always there for us to grab hold of and HE WON'T LET GO! No matter what, He will hold onto us and jump with us. All we have to do is grab onto him and trust in him. Even if we can't even see where we're going it is all about having Faith in Him that he is leading us. We just have to be obedient, follow, and Jump in! Then there are the times where we are alone at the top and he's waiting below in the water telling us jump and as soon as you get in the water I will be here waiting for you to pull you to safety. There are times we jump alone because we have confidence from past experiences and other times we jump holding onto him because we can't do it in our own power! But nevertheless it is in those times where we MUST JUMP to get to the next level in our relationship with God. It is like the DEFINING MOMENTS OF OUR FAITH!. Whether we truly believe and trust in the one we serve or if we're just speakin the words but not actually living out our faith!
So that was my awesome cool evening that God just totally blew my mind apart with a great analogy to my faith. So an encouragement to you all, when it seems things are scary and unknown, grab onto Him and take the leap of faith. Watch as he makes ends meet, he does the impossible because you are completely placing all your trust in him. Cast your burdens upon him because he already knows how to fix all your problems he's just waiting for you to give them over!
For we live by believing and not by seeing. 2 Corinthians 5:7
