Faith in a Zipline

We recently went on a zipline tour in the Smokey Mountains. This comprised jumping off a perfectly good tower while strapped onto a narrow cable, to fly at 40mph over the trees onto another, much lower tower.  Six times.  For fun apparently.

Here are the facts: you have no control over speed – no brakes, clamps, gloves – nothing.  Screaming only helps if you are facing the right way; and you have no control over the direction you are facing either.  At the end is a guy telling you to move your head away from the cable so that if he catches you, you don’t get throttled.  Those solid towers come at you pretty quick at 40 mph.  On teeny tiny wheels connected to a thin piece of aluminium from which you hang on a tired old piece of rope.  With no brakes.  And no steering.  And no airbags.  Not even a cup-holder.  And to top it all they want you to do it up-side down, which apparently you can control.

My wife loved it but apparently I did not look excited.

The difference?  She trusted the equipment and the people, and enjoyed the adrenaline.  I am a forensic engineer.  I spend my life looking at broken things.  I don’t trust stuff like that, or the people operating it.  I am also a control freak, so being completely helpless was not life affirming.

It was just like life as a Christian. 

There is little of significance about my life that I actually have any control over: life or death, health, job security, my kids’ well-being.  No brakes, steering or airbags.  It is terrifying.  I wrestle every day with going back to the bible and being reminded that God is actually in control, because:

·       He is good, and so plans good things for me, although we may sometimes differ on what is defined as “good,” or fun

·       He is all-powerful, so he can actually do something about the things that are out of control

·       He is loving, meaning he is not indifferent and facing the other way playing on his phone when I am coming at a solid object at 40 mph

So we have to keep working on learning to actually trust God.  We do that by trying him out, then looking back and remembering that He did keep his promises.  I finally did enjoy the sixth zip-ride.  Now I just have to enjoy the rest of my life, including the things I am afraid of.  By faith.

 

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:26 (ESV)