Last April, my old roommate Johnoy and I decided to go to Castlewood State Park here in St. Louis on a delightful, spring, sunny day. There are a few trails there, and one trail in particular gets you to the very top with a beautiful view. We wanted to go to the top but decided not to take the trail. Instead, we went to the other side of the park and went up the "hard way." We climbed a ginormous, steep hill, with very few trees to hold onto, with slippery rocks and glass along the way. As you can tell, this was a fantastic idea.
We quickly discovered we were not expert climbers, especially Johnoy, who is from Jamaica. We slowly proceeded to climb up this ridiculous hill. About half way up the mountain, we realized we couldn't go up any higher, as anywhere we stepped would cause a rock to fall all the way down the mountain. At that point, we decided it might be better to halt our expedition and go back down. However, looking down the mountain was like looking down from the top of a roller-coaster. We were terrified, to say the least. I tried to get ground and slide down, but I had so much fear because I was just certain I was going to fall no matter where I stepped. I grabbed onto a small tree and got right behind it. I stayed there for at least 20 minutes, freaking out, and considered calling someone to come rescue me.
Johnoy had made his way further down and he tried to get me to slide down to where he was. I was not liking the idea of moving away from my little tree. Knowing we had to get down, Johnoy tried to get me to calm down and just listen to him. However, I wouldn't listen because of my fear. Finally, I slid to the right, caught my footing and slid down to where he was. Falling into that bush saved me from falling to my death!
If I would've just listened to Johnoy and trusted him, I would have been totally fine and I wouldn't have had to go through that twenty minutes of complete fear. But, instead, I let my fear control me. I think that applies to our life sometimes. We only see it from our perspective just like all I saw was the steepness looking down.
It all comes down to pride and fear. We think our way is better than God's way. Even though God has proven himself so many times, we still struggle trusting our creator. We have too much pride in ourselves, thinking we can handle it better, that it becomes that much harder to trust God. When fear comes into place, we seem to draw farther away from trusting. For example, if we are afraid to tell someone about the Gospel because of what they might think or say, we are clearly not trusting God. I believe trust is one of the biggest things Christians struggle with. But with prayer and only because of God, we can improve in this area.
