“Yard Sale”, my skiing companion yelled, as my ski went one direction and I went the other. That’s how my night started. Yes, I fell forward, I spun, I lost skis, I fell backward, and I think I actually fell in ways, I did not know you could fall. And there I was, later, in the evening, with my body in a pile of snow at the edge of the trail, and my skis tied up the the deep snow and the branches of the small tree I had almost hit, thinking how in the world I am going to make it down this mountain. It was that fall, which was actually on the third or fourth run at this particular trail, that I decided that I would get myself back up, cast aside what was really holding me back and go. What was holding me back – fear. Fear of the exact thing that I was doing – falling!
On the last run of the night, I made it from the top to the bottom without falling – even taking a slightly harder trail to the bottom. YES, I shouted as I hit poles with my companion at the bottom of the run. I had overcome, I had cast fear aside, I had gained confidence in the skills I had been given, and I was actually really skiing ( vs just making it down alive!)
Our lives are like that. We fear. We fall. We think we are not good enough. We think we don’t have the skills to do what we should or what we want. We lie in the deep snow caught up in trees and give up ( read sin and dispair). However, we have something that should prop us up and should give us the gumption to get back up and get in there. Life is meant to be lived in the fray, and we should be in there, not worried about our own inadequacies.
I mean check this out in Romans 7.
24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Yes, we can yell that out on any day – what a wretched man that I am, WHO CAN SAVE ME!
Just a few verses down, we see the answer in Romans 8
1Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
We are free, we can get out and live it. We can get up and overcome. I did! Hey, I can now say I am a skier ( with some asterisks, but still a skier). Get up! Get out of the snow, point those skis and go man! GO!
