Trust Fall
Have you ever heard of a trust fall? A trust fall is an activity where a person deliberately falls backward without bracing themselves, relying entirely on another person or group to catch them. When I was a youth pastor, we would invite students to volunteer for the trust fall to demonstrate what faith looks like. Some students could not bring themselves to trust the process. They looked back at the last second and braced themselves for the fall. The students who trusted the process usually walked away saying something like, “Wow, that was so cool.”
Last week we started a new sermon series called “The Art of Being Unordinary.” In the eleventh chapter of Hebrews there is a list of people who had unordinary faith. They chose to believe God against all odds when faced with enormous problems and what appeared to be insurmountable circumstances.
I heard about a father who put his 5-year-old son on top of a washing machine and said, “Jump, son, I’ll catch you.” What an exciting moment for the son to experience the exhilaration of being caught in the air by his father. Only it didn’t turn out that way. The father let his son fall to the ground. The boy was shocked and started crying. His father said, “See, son, you can’t trust anyone. Don’t ever forget that!” What a tragic way to make a point. And at that, a point that’s not true. It is true that you can’t trust everyone but if we live our lives trusting no one we will live tragic lives.
Faith and trust go hand in hand. To have faith in God is to trust God.
I think this is where a lot of people come up short. Many profess faith in Jesus but trusting Jesus in the everyday circumstances of our lives requires more than talk. It requires action. We have to get some skin in the game or it’s not faith. In other words we have to be willing to take a risk. Most people want to play it safe. “No trust falls, please!” To be a true follower of Jesus is to occasionally experience a trust fall. Here is the beautiful part of the trust fall in the hands of Jesus. He will catch you and when He does it will increase your faith.
Metaphorically speaking, I’ve done a lot of trust falls in my life. Unlike the father who let his son fall to the ground, God has caught me every time. Was it scary? Was it risky? Yes, it was. After pastoring my first church I decided to plant a church in Pacific Beach. We started with 18 people and no assurance that we could financially sustain our family of five. It takes thousands of dollars to start a church. It was the ultimate trust fall. Karen and I took out most of our life savings and did the trust fall. Within a year we were able to pay ourselves back as the church grew and became viable.
Hebrews 11:6 (NIV) says, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
Where is God calling you to trust him right now? Are you willing to take a trust fall? If so, I’m rooting for you because God will not let you fall. He will catch you and your faith will soar to new heights!
Stay close to Jesus,
Steve