Last Saturday, my family and I drove two hours to the city of Ellijay up in the Georgia mountains. To B.J. Reeces apple orchard. It was a simply beautiful autumn day for being outdoors. Browning leaves had fallen from the trees and scattered on the ground and there was a crisp nip in the air just cold enough for lightweight jackets and sweatshirts. It truly felt like fall. It was perfect. My older sister, her husband, and my one-year-old niece drove from Tennessee to spend the day with us. We hand-picked apples and found a jackpot tree laden with apples in the orchard. We took pictures of my niece amidst the pumpkins vibrant orange in the sunlight. We took a tractor ride, watched pig races, and ate apple fritters. And I marveled a little at the thick Georgia accents of the employees and farm hands. The orchard offered many things you might expect to find at harvest time at an orchard or pumpkin patch. But it offered one thing that none of us had expected: ziplining. My parents, my sisters, and I had never been ziplining before but my dad showed interest in it. It would be a good first experience: it wasnt over a canyon or gulf or anything of the sort. They were two racing ziplines one-thousand feet across the sloping apple orchard. We watched the zipliners whizz by overhead. My dad said he would think about it and maybe try it later if my mom would agree to do it with him to share the experience. My mom, not being crazy about heights, asked me to zipline with him instead. And hence the idea was planted in my mind. As we went about our day, the more I watched the zipliners overhead and the more I thought about it, the stronger the draw to do it became. My interest turned to excitement. There was something daring and bold, something spontaneous, unexpected, adventurous, and risky about it and that appealed to me. I love trying new things, particularly if they challenge me to step outside of my comfort zone. But that excitement slowly turned to something more. The past two months, as my twentieth birthday had begun approaching and as I had been working through some things in the wake of a turn in my personal life, the Lord had been teaching me more about myself. I had begun rediscovering a strength and a level of confidence that I had forgotten I had. He had begun reminding me of my old fearlessness- the fearlessness I carried within me as I would hop up onto horses backs and train them in ways that often exceeded my comfort zone and my safety net. He had begun reminding me of qualities within myself that somehow in the past two years I had slowly lost sight of. And the more that I looked up at that zipline, the more times I heard people whizzing by, the stronger that draw within me became. Though I didnt voice it, something inside of me knew there was something about taking that step that was significance to embracing the change that God had begun working in me. There was something about it that I needed to do. And by the end of the day, I was willing to go on that zipline alone even if none of the rest of my family wanted to go with me. My dad, my mom, my oldest sister Christina, and I purchased our tickets, signed our liability forms, and were suited with helmets and harnesses. I felt so small as the young lady tightened down the straps on my harness around my petite frame. If Julie can do it, I can do it, I heard my sister say, and as we climbed the wooden steps of the platform together, she told me, Im not scared because you arent. And somehow, I wasnt. As I stood on that high wooden platform, clipped securely to the zipline and looking out across the orchard as the sun was beginning to set, I wasnt scared. I wasnt nervous and my stomach wasnt in knots or butterflies at all. I was thrilled. As I waited in anticipation for my turn, I couldnt wait. And I knew that in the past two months, I had changed. I wasnt the same girl anymore. Two months ago, while that girl mightve still taken that step, she wouldve been having doubts as she stood looking out across the orchard before her. But not anymore. The farm hands opened the wooden gates and after my sister went, I stepped out onto the air, trusting the wire above me to hold my weight. I began sliding down the wire slowly at first but quickly I gained momentum as I flew down that wire. As I accelerated, I looked down at the orchard beneath my feet and out across the acres of land. There was something liberating knowing that for that moment in time, not even the grown beneath my feet could hold me down. But as I sped through the air on that wire, I got twisted somehow and I found myself looking back at the platform from which I had stepped. And my stomach began to feel sick. I began to get motion sickness at the speed I was traveling until I managed to twist myself around again so that I could look ahead instead toward where I was going. When youre flying down a zipline, the wind is whipping all around you. As my speed accelerated, all noises faded. My sisters shouts of thrill from up ahead grew fainter and any calls from the platform behind me wouldve been lost. The only noise that filled my ears was that of the air. The pure sound of the wind surrounding me. God calls us to do certain things in this life. To step in certain life directions, to perform certain tasks. As I was inexplicably drawn to that zipline, God puts callings and passions and tasks on our hearts to do. He draws us. And that drawing will become so strong that eventually, we wont care what people might think. We wont care if were all alone and nobody joins us. Because the calling on our heart is that strong. And I realized that the things He calls us to do requires trust. Just as I trusted the farm employees to secure me properly to that wire, oftentimes, Hell call us to assignments that require us to trust other people, and just as I trusted that wire to bear my weight as I stepped from the platform into the air, the things God calls us to do will always require us to trust in Him to keep us from falling as we step out in faith. Some of the greatest moments of our lives will come as a result of our ability to trust. Oftentimes, we wont always feel qualified for the things that He calls us to do though. In the preparation, as He begins to equip us for the task ahead, we may realize how small or inexperienced we really are compared to Him. We may become suddenly very aware of our weaknesses and our faults, and its in those moments that we realize just how desperately we need Him. But as we step out in faith, trusting the Lord and being carried by Him, suddenly the voices of others begin to fade away. The voices that may try to call us back. All I could hear was the sound of the wind in my ears, just as the sole voice we need to hear and focus on as we step forward into what God calls us to do is His voice and the wind of the Spirit as were surrounded by His presence. Yet, the temptation can be strong to look back even as were moving forward. But God calls us forward not back. We arent meant to look in the past from the comfort zone and place of safe familiarity from which we came. Were meant to look ahead toward where God is calling us and drawing us forward to. But perhaps the greatest beauty of it lies not in the journey down that wire and what we experience in that flight and on the other side. But rather, in the example we leave behind. Im not scared because you arent. We have the power to influence those around us by our own lives and by the decisions that we make. To leave behind an example for those left on the platform to follow and to support and embolden each other with those who go forward with us. Because we need each other in our moments when our courage fails. Theres a time for each of us to put aside the fears that are holding us down from becoming the person that the Lord calls us to be and from doing all that He calls us to do. Were called to live fearless spiritual lives, but its our choice to take the first step. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 2Timothy 1:7
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 21:18:04 +0000