If you wait until you're ready..........

My best friend Angela has a birthday just 12 days before mine. Because we have such close birthdays, over the ten years that we have known each other, we have celebrated together many times. This year in honor of our 28th birthdays, we went zip-lining and out to dinner with friends. Here is a pic of us all harnessed and helmeted up:



After we were strapped in and briefed on safety and instructions, we climbed the three stories to the top of our first platform. If you don't know what zip-lining entails, you put on a harness, attach your self to a cable, and sail through the air from platform to platform. On our climb I admitted to Angela that I was in fact nervous even though this was my idea.

As the first few people went I was still fighting nerves. Finally I stepped up to the loading spot. My guide hooked my harness and pulley to the cable. My harness was tight. My pulley was secure. The back up safety cord was in it's proper place. And finally as I stared out into the vastness three stories in the air, my guide said I could go. I responded "I know." And continued to just stand there. It took me a moment to convince myself to willingly fling myself off of this platform and into the air three stories above the ground. Everything was going to be fine, I knew that. But still I didn't "feel" ready. Finally I took a deep breath and stepped off the platform. The rest is glorious, laugh-filled, joyous flight time through the air history. I had an absolute blast!!

I told this story to one of my student leaders the other day. She's nervous about taking a step further in to leadership in our ministry. She said she doesn't "feel" ready. I told her how when I first stepped in to leadership as a student that I didn't "feel" ready either. But God told me that if I waited til I "felt" ready then I was never going to do anything.

See zip-lining is exactly like that. When my guide told me to go I was completely prepared. Everything was secure and in place. I had absolutely nothing to worry about. But yet still due to nervousness, I just didn't "feel" ready. At some point I had to overcome that nervousness and just fling myself off the platform.

Now if I weren't harnessed in or my safety cord wasn't hooked on or my pulley didn't work then I truly would not have been ready. But that wasn't it. I was just scared. Often times when God asks us to do something we interpret fear with not being ready. We like to tell people that we aren't ready when in fact we are harnessed and all. Really we're just scared.

I would never tell someone to jump if they weren't actually ready. In zip-lining it is dumb to fling yourself off the platform if you aren't harnessed properly. Spiritually it's dumb to fling yourself in to leadership if you aren't pursuing a relationship with God. But if we're just fighting the nerves and "feel" like we're not ready.... oh well then fling away!!!!!

What is God asking you to fling yourself in to today? Are you "ready" or are you ready??

Until then......