On the Monkey Bars
Do you remember when you were a child and you got to go to the playground? The amount of fun playing with friends, enjoying nice weather, and running off pent-up energy. Did you ever try the monkey bars? The ones you hold onto while dangling above the ground while you work your way to the other side.
I recently watched my young niece work her way across a set of monkey bars. I know she was a good 2 feet above the ground but she had no fear. There was a brief moment in which I thought she was going to drop, but she didn’t. She kept going and was oh so proud to reach the other side.
I couldn’t help but think about persevering in life. It was a perfect example.
To succeed at crossing the monkey bars, you must let go of one bar and reach forward with your free hand to the next. Alternating as you go across, trusting the strength in your arms and hands to keep you from dropping to the ground. I remember recess as a kid when the weather was hot. The sweat on your palms didn’t bode well for making it across.
Letting go and reaching forward. Such is with life, isn’t it? If we hold onto the past without properly handling it, we will get stuck. Unable to grow, heal, and embrace all that life has for us. Never forgetting our past but rather storing healthy emotions. We weren’t meant to carry so much pain, anxiety, depression, fear, or uncertainty on our own. God gives us people and resources to help us cope and to cheer us on as we work to move forward. Much like I cheered my niece on as she crossed the monkey bars, and then she cheered on another friend as she gave it a try.
We are all going to have days when we are met with a daunting set of monkey bars we must cross. Some days we are going to need encouragement and other days we are going to need to be the encourager. Don’t let a day go by that you don’t persevere. Don’t miss opportunities to be a light to those around you.
Now let’s go tackle some monkey bars!
Romans 5:1-8, The Message Translation
By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.
There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!
Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.
