I open my eyes to see my feet standing on a deck. I start to look out in front of me, scanning what’s ahead. I see a ten foot stretch of decking that leads to an opening in the railing. Beyond is a distant view of dark blue water and mountains in the distance. My heart starts to pound, adrenaline coursing through my body. Beads of sweat start to form on my forehead. My hands start to shake. Dozens of eyes on me, waiting to see what I do.
Before I give my mind the chance to register what I am about to do I begin to run. The opening in the railing rapidly approaches. I take one last step and launch myself over the edge with all the energy and momentum I can muster. For a few seconds I am frozen in air, but it feels like minutes. Staring at fast approaching water that looks like glass about 30 feet below. My arms spread out wide. I am flying, but only for a moment. Gravity takes over and I begin to plummet towards the water head first. As the surface gets ever closer I position my hands above my head to make a good entry, all while praying I don’t over rotate and smack the water as if it were a cement wall. Splash!
A rush of cold hits every part of my body, feeling like prickles from head to toe as I am engulfed by the water. It takes a few big strokes underwater before I break the surface. As I breathe fresh air again, I cannot help but smile. The thrill of jumping off a 30 foot cliff head first buzzing through my mind and rushing through my veins. My first thought being “I need to do that again!” So I swim to the rocks where I can climb out and do it all over. I spend the rest of the afternoon jumping and diving, always trying to do something crazier and borderline stupid. It didn’t help that my friend Jarod was right there to push the limits with me. We continued to run off the cliffs doing backflips, diving simultaneously, and even at one point jumping off the railing together. At the time I just thought I was just having fun and letting the crazy side of me out for a while, but later I realized that there was a lot more to it than that.
I saw The Lord in that experience. Not only was He there and had His hand of protection over all of us, but also in a deeper sense. The Lord has not given us a spirit of fear and even though cliff jumping isn’t something super spiritual or life threatening for the sake of the Kingdom, it is still practicing living without fear. I want to be a man that lives without fear in the everyday, so that when the time comes to live without fear for Him and for the Kingdom, it will be nothing new to me and I will be ready. I challenge you to do the same. Do something that scares you and have faith the The Lord is with you, because He is and He always will be.
