Caught by Grace

When I was in high school, our student council hosted a leadership day for all the other student council groups in our area. The guest speaker encouraged us to be a team and to help each other. Then he instructed us to our next leadership promoting activity, the name of which still strikes no small amount of sheer terror in my heart.

He wanted us to do trust falls.

A trust fall involves a person falling backward into the arms of others who stand waiting with their arms stretched outward. Ideally, the person falling backward is caught in a poetic and symbolic action.

Somehow, I ended up standing on the cafeteria table.

I blame peer pressure.

I can still hear them chanting my name to fall.

Frozen in fear, I stood embarrassed and shaking, unable to let go and descend gracefully into the arms of those chanty high school kids. It was honestly one of the most frightening moments in my life.

{What if they think it’s funny to drop me on the (hard) ground?

What if they tell everyone how heavy I was and how I am so big that it hurt their arms to catch me?

What if I can’t really trust them?}

Many of us struggle with trust for good reason. We’ve been let down by those we trusted to catch us. So we pretend that self-reliance is easy–when it’s really akin to doing a trust fall knowing full well that no one is there to catch us. People have given us many reasons to ask, “What if…?”

God has given us the opportunity to lean on the One who has yet to break a promise. He not only catches us, but cradles us through our lives and goes so far as to actually delight in doing so!

————

Louisa Stead and her husband were eating a picnic by the beach when they noticed a drowning boy. Her husband dove into the water, only to be pulled under with the boy. Louisa could only look on helplessly from the shore.

It would have been difficult to lean back into God’s love after such a horrible turn of events, but Louisa sat down shortly after losing her husband to respond to great tragedy with these familiar words:

 

‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus

Just to take Him at His Word

Just to rest upon him promise

Just to know thus saith the Lord

Jesus Jesus how I trust him

How I proved him o’er and o’er

Jesus Jesus precious Jesus

 

oh for grace to trust him more

——-

 

I don’t remember if i completed the trust fall or not that day. I probably blocked it from my memory because it was so traumatizing. 🙂

You know, it doesn’t really even matter whether I let them catch me or not anyway. The things in my life that have required so much dependence on the Father heart of God have proved Him over and over as the One worth trusting. The Lord stands eager, ready to catch us and carry us into the most treasured of moments…the likes of which we would never experience without him.

So here He is, not chanting our name or demanding us to fall, not giving us even so much as a shove, but gently beckoning for the chance to prove that His arms are the safest. His trustworthy record is unblemished. 

Let us ask for the grace we need to trust Him more and celebrate when He victoriously catches us again and again. There’s never a need for a “what if” with Jesus.

——-

Trust, friends. He’s worth the risk.

 

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Lauren Alexander is a child of God whose goal is to disciple women to behold and reflect Christ in thought, word and deed. Her greatest work of discipleship happens at her home with her husband Seth as they partner in discipling their four awesome kids, Tabbi, Heather, Ty, and Elijah Burke. Lauren enjoys meeting with her prayer group, being active in her church community, watching Baking Shows on TV, and leading her online community, All The Things. You can find her at www.facebook.com/AllTheThingsWithLaurenAlexander, @allthethingslauren, LaurenAlexander.live.