In Times Like These

New experience at our age don’t come along very often.  Yesterday we had one.  Our friends Robert and Donna Marshall invited us to a rappelling adventure.  So we went to the mountain and experienced rappelling.  I had done it once before at a men’s retreat.  That was off a tower.  This was different.  And it was Jen’s first time.  

After instructions, it is time to fly.  Those first steps over the edge of  the cliff are the adrenalin moments.  Then it is pure delight as you descend, totally in control of your speed.  See the joy on Jen’s face as she experiences the freedom of controlled falling.  

Rappelling is an experience of faith.  At first you have faith in Robert.  He knows what he is doing. Doesn’t he?  Then you have to believe the equipment will hold you up and hold you back from descending too fast.  Then you have to believe the safety person at the bottom can catch you if you make an error.  

Perhaps the strangest faith factor is trusting that the unknown person who put the anchor in the rock, who knows when, it was already there when we started, did the job right.  Everything depends on the anchor holding, and gripping the solid rock.  

Not unlike our faith in Christ.  “Be very sure, your anchor holds, and grips the solid rock.”  (From the hymn, “In Times Like These.”