Leap of Faith

So many times in my life I feel as though I am ready for a change, a new beginning, a fresh start: tabula rasa. And yet breaking the inertial grip of gravity is always the hardest step to take - the first one. Be it a new diet, working out, reading the Bible more, reducing the amount of hypocrisy in what I preach to my kids... that list is endless.

I can appreciate that as humans we are creatures of habit, that we are somehow addicted to the NORM in all its various shapes and sizes. To stray from that norm is a frightening prospect, regardless of how dysfunctional the norm may be in its own right. Just look at the many stories of victims returning to abusers - it's what they know, their norm.

To step out of the norm, to step out of that place of familiarity is a risk. If a person feels that it is God calling them they call it "stepping out in faith." But to move out of the norm - isn't it always a stepping out in faith? Maybe not always to a God-called place, but faith in something better, something different, someplace offering a new beginning.

I can honestly say that I've taken very few, if any, true steps of faith in my life. A step where I have risked something substantial if I fall. I wholeheartedly expect there to be call of God at some point in time in my life where I will face that decision. I hope I have the faith and confidence to submit myself to His will (and I hope He's very clear about my direction).

For some reason this early morning I find myself considering those people trapped in the twin towers on September 11, 2001. The total number of people who jumped from the towers is quite staggering. Some put the number as many as 200+. I have got to think that as they leapt from those perilous heights that they knew they would not survive. And still they jumped.

You see we all can control the first step, the jump, the leap of faith. Our own motor skills and our own volition cause our bodies to move in whatever direction we choose with as much force as we care to muster. After that, though, it's all on God.

It is when we truly recognize that, regardless of our intention and our direction for our lives, if we have the faith and moxie to make that first step, that leap, that it is into God's hands that we fall and only then can He place us on the right path, in the right place, at the right time according to His plan for our lives.

Some might say that those people on September 11 jumped to their certain deaths. And that may be all that we can see with our short-sighted human eyes. But I like to think that the vast majority took a leap a faith we can scarcely imagine and that faced with a terrible decision, on a terrible day, turned their hearts and minds to God, trusted Him, and leapt....straight into His hands.