I have yet so much to learn...This life seems only to get stranger and more complicated and more confusing with the coming of each new day. And yet, I am beginning to learn, I couldn't have it any other way.... I really couldn't.
Hugging tightly to the face of this small cliff, feeling my hands begin to lose their grip on the small rocks they're tightly squeezing, a funny thought runs through my head; "Why am I doing this?" Not exactly having time to sit and meditate for a while on the matter, I reach back up with my one hand and regain my grip, able now to reposition myself against the rock face and try again at pulling myself up onto the next ledge. In position now for the "hop" up, I take a quick gasp of air. "Hop". With hand clenching tightly as my forearms show the strain they're enduring, I pull myself to safety. Getting back up to my feet now, I look down at what I just chanced falling to. Rocks. Hard, sharp, rocks looming below. Exhaling with a great sense of satisfaction, a grin sneaks across my face. Looking at what I just climbed, I have found my answer. As I look around at the sprawling Ocean that has just run away with my eyes, I smile now and say under my heavy breath, "Freedom". "hmm", I think to myself, "Yea, that's the answer..." I look to my right and see how much more I need to climb around and over to get to my destination. With almost a sense of giddiness I begin to move quickly over and around rocks and boulders. My hands now are almost unable to make a solid fist because my forearms are beginning to feel the burn of lactic acid creaping into them, and yet they prove once again to be faithful comrades in yet another adventure, pushing and pulling and gripping with all their strength. Having now only to jump around and over certain boulders, I find myself moving quicker. I waste no time! With each step I find myself moving as if my body should weigh nothing more than the air that I'm moving through. With deep breaths I am inhaling life. Now in my mind this is no longer about getting to my beach destination. I find myself compelled; pushed on by an appetite for adrenaline. As I reach the end of this climbing adventure, I let out a small laugh thinking about my why...And how couldn't I laugh? I could have fallen, and died, and nobody would have been there to see. Well, God, angels, me; ofcourse... Freedom....Freedom, yes, I think that's it..
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And now, I move on. The cliffs were not easy. They never are. I don't know that they ever will be. Injury is always a risk. Ofcourse, sometimes more serious of a risk...Sometimes much is put on the line. Sometimes my hands plot mutany against their captain. Sometimes my mind checks my adrenaline filled heart. Not a bad thing! But, I have learned this; I cannot live, and really live, without these cliffs. Should the architect and author and affection of my life have seen it fit to make me so, how can I help but not do that which I have been created and molded and called to do? Shall I refuse that which gives me greatest joy to pursue? I cannot. I pray I shall not. For in this life there is not any obstacle to which Him who calls me shall not prepare me for and sustain me through. Though I should dangle half-helplessly in the last bit of my strength, yet I shall be made to know of the strength and enabling of Him who calls me. Thus there shall be left to me no other life than this...Than that I should come to abide in such a place of "half-helplessness", only to know and to learn of Him who is called Faithful. As He becomes my enabling I find a life that is, with each breath, that worth living. I find the greatest freedom in binding myself to the will of this God I love, for it He who has made me so; I cannot love another...
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Life continues to be difficult at times. It continues to be tiring. I cannot help but ask at times, "why am I doing this?". But yet, in it all, I cannot help but smile. I will yet smile because there is within me such a joy in this pursual. There is yet more joy to be had. More challenges and adventures await him who has been designed for them. And, likewise, the grace and empowering of the sovereign one has already been supplied for each step of the way. I do not know where I will go. I do not know what I will do. As I am coming over the top of this challenge, I see now the next step that awaits me. It will not be easy. Much of the way I will doubt and complain and bicker. But yet, I know, that just as He who has called me has been faithful, so now I trust He shall continue to be. China is a big place. Who should know what my God cannot do?