Trust Fall
A few guys I taught last year are crazy. I don't mean literally crazy. They're loud, and somehow they manage to find me wherever I am. One morning I walked up to another hall to visit one of my teacher friends. I sat down in one of her student desks for a quick chat before school when these students burst through the door panting. "There she is!" They yelled. They'd tracked me down.
Last year they waged one of the best student council election campaigns I've ever seen. They didn't hand out Jolly Ranchers or make empty promises to the student body. Oh no! They just screamed. A lot. In between classes they constantly yelled, "Vote for him!!" Over. AND OVER. They followed that up with a series of posters with Conan the Barbarian [Arnold Schwarzenegger] giving a hearty endorsement. It was obnoxious, but what can I say? He won.
There's this thing they love to do - The Trust Fall. It might be familiar to you from corporate team- building workshops. You know-- you fall backwards trusting that your team mate will catch you. Except these guys don't do it in any kind of structured way. It's like this:
Yep. It's just like that, only picture it in the middle of a classroom in a public high school.
I've been thinking about trust a lot this week. Partly because some teenage boys keep running up to each other, screaming, "TRUST FALL!" right in front of me. It also seems that many of my conversations this week with struggling parents, students, and colleagues have been about trust.
A while back my husband took me off somewhere on an errand. I don't remember where we were or what we were doing, but we took some serious back roads. I was in my car following behind his truck. My husband has worked for years in energy (propane and electricity), so he's traveled all over our area. He knows the back roads. He told me to follow him. I did.
We'd been riding along for several minutes when he disappeared around a curve in front of me. I looked around and realized I had no idea where I was. All I could see was trees and worn out blacktop. I didn't recognize a thing. However, I was only worried for a second. This is what I thought -- "What if he leaves me behind? [gasp.] He won't." I didn't worry, not one single bit.
Why? I wasn't concerned because I trust my husband. We've been through some tough times together, and he hasn't left me behind yet. I was right of course. Just around the corner, he'd slowed down to wait for me.
I thought about that day when I was talking to a colleague this week. She's been having a rough time lately, and God's role in her life came up in one of our conversations. "I just don't understand why I have to go through this stuff," she said. Honestly, I didn't really have an answer for her because I don't truly know why she's suffering.
I did offer her my theory.
There's no other way to have a genuinely deep relationship with God. If He's going to guide us, we have to trust Him. Proverbs 3:5-6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths." You've got to Trust Fall. How else can He prove to us that He's really going to catch us? He has to let us face difficulty to show us that He's able to see us through it.
That's definitely the way I've experienced God's love and guidance. He's always caught me in time, even when it doesn't seem like He will, even when I don't have the faith in Him I should.
My God is awesome. He catches me, and then He gives me students who make me laugh.
Last year they waged one of the best student council election campaigns I've ever seen. They didn't hand out Jolly Ranchers or make empty promises to the student body. Oh no! They just screamed. A lot. In between classes they constantly yelled, "Vote for him!!" Over. AND OVER. They followed that up with a series of posters with Conan the Barbarian [Arnold Schwarzenegger] giving a hearty endorsement. It was obnoxious, but what can I say? He won.
There's this thing they love to do - The Trust Fall. It might be familiar to you from corporate team- building workshops. You know-- you fall backwards trusting that your team mate will catch you. Except these guys don't do it in any kind of structured way. It's like this:
Yep. It's just like that, only picture it in the middle of a classroom in a public high school.
I've been thinking about trust a lot this week. Partly because some teenage boys keep running up to each other, screaming, "TRUST FALL!" right in front of me. It also seems that many of my conversations this week with struggling parents, students, and colleagues have been about trust.
A while back my husband took me off somewhere on an errand. I don't remember where we were or what we were doing, but we took some serious back roads. I was in my car following behind his truck. My husband has worked for years in energy (propane and electricity), so he's traveled all over our area. He knows the back roads. He told me to follow him. I did.
We'd been riding along for several minutes when he disappeared around a curve in front of me. I looked around and realized I had no idea where I was. All I could see was trees and worn out blacktop. I didn't recognize a thing. However, I was only worried for a second. This is what I thought -- "What if he leaves me behind? [gasp.] He won't." I didn't worry, not one single bit.
Why? I wasn't concerned because I trust my husband. We've been through some tough times together, and he hasn't left me behind yet. I was right of course. Just around the corner, he'd slowed down to wait for me.
I thought about that day when I was talking to a colleague this week. She's been having a rough time lately, and God's role in her life came up in one of our conversations. "I just don't understand why I have to go through this stuff," she said. Honestly, I didn't really have an answer for her because I don't truly know why she's suffering.
I did offer her my theory.
There's no other way to have a genuinely deep relationship with God. If He's going to guide us, we have to trust Him. Proverbs 3:5-6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths." You've got to Trust Fall. How else can He prove to us that He's really going to catch us? He has to let us face difficulty to show us that He's able to see us through it.
That's definitely the way I've experienced God's love and guidance. He's always caught me in time, even when it doesn't seem like He will, even when I don't have the faith in Him I should.
My God is awesome. He catches me, and then He gives me students who make me laugh.
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