Have you ever gone skydiving? No, not like indoor skydiving, but like from a plane, parachute on your back, roll the door up and slide out, skydiving. My guess is that the majority of you who are reading this have not. So, I’m going to give you a quick synopsis so that you can understand this devo a little bit better. Note: I haven’t been skydiving either but from the videos that I watched on YouTube, my account is pretty good.

 

Ok, so there are two types of skydiving people, those with experience who love skydiving and those who are doing this because they lost a bet (ok just kidding, maybe they just wanted to try it?). The people who are super experienced and have jumped out of the skydiving planes a lot do something like the following: jump time is close, door flies open, smile hits their face, the light says they are good to jump, they jump and smile the whole way down (with their mouths closed, of course, they don’t want to eat a bug). On the other end of the spectrum are those who are new to skydiving. This is what happens when they are left on their own to skydive: enter the airplane, think if this is really a smart idea; fly into the sky, feel more relaxed now that they can’t back out; door opens, they look out and see how far they are from the ground, and they start to rethink what they are doing. “Is this really smart? What if the parachute doesn’t open? What if I get pushed by the wind? What if this? Should I do that? Should I have…” The list goes on and on and on. But what they forget is that they have an experienced skydiver strapped to their back ready to take on this skydive with them. But instead, they just sit there looking at how far away the ground is: thinking, fearing, doubting, retreating.

 

While most of us don’t know what it feels like to be on the plane’s edge waiting to skydive, there’s most definitely a time in our lives where we have had to look over the edge and determine if we really should make that choice or take that action or pursue that relationship. Something that I have learned over the years (so many years) is that the longer we stand on this edge by ourselves, the longer we will stand there. The more we get into our own heads, the more our heads will create new problems for us to solve, and the more solutions we create, the more problems we will find. 

 

We see this happen in the Bible when the Israelites are supposed to go into the land that God has promised them. Moses sends in twelve spies to check out the land and figure out what strategies would help them most to conquer this land. Two of the twelve spies returned to Moses and say that the land is great and there will be no problems conquering it. The other ten spies come back and in Numbers 13:31 say “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” You see, in their own minds, they had convinced themselves that the people were too strong for them and that the land was unconquerable. But they had forgotten that they had an experienced conqueror with them who was already planning on helping them. They had forgotten about their experienced skydiver. 

 

When we approach things that look scary, the longer we sit on the edge of action alone, the longer we will stay there. We have to remember that we have a God so much more powerful than the wind or the parachute or anything else. And while He might use the wind to get us to a different location, He will never unhook Himself from us. We might unhook ourselves from Him because we think we can skydive better without Him, but God will never abandon you. 

 

I have a friend whom I knew was struggling. I didn’t want to approach them and talk to them about their struggles because I was afraid that I would embarrass them or myself or that they weren’t actually struggling or that someone else was already helping them… I created so many reasons why I shouldn’t go and talk to them. And with each reason that I created, dozens more surfaced. I had forgotten that I had an experienced skydiver behind me who knew how to help this person. Luckily, God created a perfect moment for me to go and talk to this person. He nudged me just a little closer to the edge, not off the edge, but just close enough that I knew this was my chance, and I took it. This skydive ended up being the start of an amazing friendship that dove deeper than the surface level that it had lived on before. 

 

So hold onto your experienced skydiver. Remember that He already knows how to skydive. Remember that He will be with you the entire time. And above all else, remember that He loves you and will always have your back.