A little bit ago I read a book called Do Hard Things by Alex
and Brett Harris. The authors are
teenagers and the book is written for teenagers, but the book has messages that
can apply to anyone at any age. The
premise of the book is that our society has incredibly low expectations for
teenagers, we see the teen years as years when teens have virtually no
responsibilities and we expect our teens to accomplish very little. In reality, however, teens are capable of
doing incredible things and accomplishing far more than we expect. God has given all people (including teens)
gifts and talents and God expects us to use these gifts to do God’s work here
on earth.
The lake, islands, and land surrounding my family’s cabin in
northwestern Ontario were carved out by glaciers thousands of years ago,
leaving some magnificent geographical forms including some cliffs. My sister, cousins, friends, and I spent
quite a few summer afternoons jumping off of cliffs near our cabin. It’s nothing too extreme, but we sure had
fun.
One day some years back, someone from my parent’s generation
decided she wanted to jump off the cliffs with all the young people (this woman
has given me permission to share this story, but I won’t reveal her identity).
We all went in the boat to the cliffs and as we usually did,
we young people started climbing to the top of the cliffs and jumping into the
water. The woman knew she didn’t want to
jump off the big cliff, so she made her way to the jumping off point of the
smaller cliff.
She stood there at the top of the cliff for 5 minutes…10
minutes…15 minutes… During this time we
demonstrated how to properly jump by being sure to push off of the rock really
hard. We reassured her that we had all
jumped dozens of times and we were all perfectly fine. 30 minutes…45 minutes passed… by this time we
had all jumped numerous times and had just about had our fill of jumping and
were about ready to go home. Our tactics
of polite encouragement and support had turned to frustration as we called out
“Just jump already!!!” There were
numerous times when she started to jump off, but stopped herself before she
actually jumped. She got closer to the
edge of the cliff looked down, said she was going to jump, backed up, got a bit
of a walking start, stopped, looked over the cliff, backed up, started to go
again, stopped, said she was going to jump…
(And the best part of this story is her husband was videotaping this
entire episode, waiting for her to jump.
He didn’t want to stop recording for fear that she would finally decide
to jump when he had stopped recording. So somewhere there is a tape of a woman standing on a cliff for an hour.)
More than an hour passed, and then with little fanfare or
announcement she jumped. When she
surfaced we all clapped for her and her accomplishment (and because we were
glad we could finally return home).
How many of us have stood on a “cliff” terrified to jump off? Who hasn’t been afraid to do something hard
and big even when we knew we should (for a variety of reasons)?
I know I have often stood on a “cliff” feeling paralyzed to
jump off.
But life is all about jumping off those cliffs.
I don’t know for sure how this woman felt after she jumped
off that cliff, but I imagine she felt better after having jumped than she did
standing at the top of the cliff.
Preparing to jump is often terrifying, but looking back we often realize
that jumping off a “cliff” is one of the best things we ever did.
If you had told me four years ago that I’d be doing the work
I’m doing now, I would have told you you were completely insane. But in the past four years I have stepped out
of my comfort zone, learned to do new, hard things, and risked failure and
rejection. I jumped off a lot of
“cliffs.”
So why have I done these hard things?
It’s certainly not because I wanted fame or money. It’s because I keep ending up in situations
where I feel drawn to do these hard things.
God has presented me with opportunities to take on these challenges. I’m not sure where I have gotten the courage
to jump off these “cliffs”…this is a topic for another day…
Meanwhile there are still plenty of “cliffs” that I need to
jump off, and I’m sure there are plenty of “cliffs” that you need to jump off,
too.
So on the count of “three” let’s all take a deep breath, get
a running start, push off of the “cliff” and jump into the water below.
One…two…three…
