Air Conditioners and Cliffs (and lessons on trust)

I have a friend.

She’s a year and a half old, now.

A couple months ago, I was helping her family move to a new house, and for awhile in the afternoon I ended up being her “guardian”, while her family was occupied with other responsibilities. Being the intensely happy and always energetic girl she is, she can’t sit still for too long. So, after walking around the moving truck and going over to visit a neighbor goat, we walked back to the house and I set her on the air conditioning unit so she could see better. Holding onto my index fingers, she stood and watched everything happening in the yard for a few minutes. Then she turned and looked at me with a humongous grin on her face, let go of my fingers, looked down, shuffled to the edge, looked back at my face, and jumped. Giggling.

Naturally, I reached out, caught her mid-flight, still giggling, set her down, and we both happily wandered over to visit the goat again.

What if I hadn’t caught her though? She’d be on the cement, four feet down. Not fun.

But she didn’t even consider that. Of course, I’d catch her. Of course.

What if we did that with God?

What if, instead of saying “oh no. Please don’t take me there. I couldn’t possibly do that. I’ll do anything in the world but that. Uh, can I just–hey, what if I did this instead? Just pleaaaase don’t make me do that!”

No. What if, instead, we shuffled right over, with giant grins on our faces, and jumped off, giggling?

I don’t think we’d be visiting the cement. Because he’d reach out, and catch us mid-flight. And we’d run off together to the next challenge.

On Friday, I landed in Cambodia, in southeast Asia, where I’ll spend the year teaching English at a mission school. Currently I’m in my apartment, listening to the rain roaring on the metal roof and pouring from the banana tree outside my window, supplemented by thunder in the background. It’s day four–or maybe five–of quarantine, the second day in the rural village where I’ll be spending the year.

Sure, there’s things I’d rather be doing. (Anyone want to come play scrabble or something?!)

But no.

What if, when God led us to a cliff, we never hesitated, never looked at the cement below, but shuffled over with huge grins on our faces and jumped, simply because He was waiting at the bottom?

I plan to find out.