It’s probably been almost 20 years since I last jumped out of an airplane, but there are still some fun memories of those days. Most of the skydiving you see in pictures or videos is called “belly flying,” where the skydiver is laying down horizontally. It’s a lot of fun, I did a lot of neat stuff that way. You fall about 120 mph, and you can flip, roll, do formations, all kinds of neat stuff.
But there was a brief time in this chapter of my life I wanted to try something a little more edgy. Rather than belly flying, it’s possible to do something called “sit flying” or “head-down flying,” where you position yourself vertically instead of horizontally. It’s trickier to do and takes some additional practice. You can do it right-side up (so you look like you’re standing in the air) or upside-down. Since you’re positioned vertically rather than horizontally, there’s less drag and you have a faster terminal velocity. Instead of 120 mph, you’re falling closer to 150 or 180 mph. Unfortunately it means the freefall is over sooner, but the tradeoff is faster speeds allow you to have more precise control once you become proficient at it.
I only tried this for a handful of jumps. I jumped with a coach, who stayed belly-flying until I managed to get into a vertical orientation. It was tough to do, I had a lot of stutter-starts, and it was a totally different animal than the skydiving I was used to. For a bit, I got the balance right and I started accelerating toward the ground, away from my coach. She was very experienced, so she caught up to me once I got away from her. The thing that felt really weird was when I managed to hold the right position for awhile, I started going so fast my goggles began wobbling from the wind. I was on the cusp of starting to get this totally new thing figured out when I, for whatever reason, couldn’t hold the position any longer, and I tumbled out of the vertical orientation and my body acted like an air brake and slowed me down by 30+ mph (can you imagine?). I got a little taste of that “next level” feeling, and I couldn’t hang on.
We’ll come back to this in a minute, but first I’d like to talk for just a bit about the different aspects of various ministries that excite us.
God created all of us with various interests. Even unbelievers have different hobbies they enjoy. Why? Why does someone get into stamp collecting while someone else crochets or enjoys woodworking, gardening, or painting? (Or skydiving?) None of it’s right or wrong; it’s just how God wired us as individuals. For those of us who become Christians, there’s a similar phenomenon at play. Upon being saved, many develop a desire to serve the body of Christ in some capacity, but there’s no cookie-cutter approach to how to go about doing it. We’re drawn to one or more of myriad possibilities.
Think about the different volunteer opportunities available in church. A few which come to mind are greeters, playing instruments, being an usher, singing, being a Sunday school teacher or working on the audio/visual team. That’s just in your local body of believers; beyond those walls you can volunteer in soup kitchens, hospitals, meal delivery organizations, do things like yard work for folks who can’t do that sort of thing anymore, etc. In broader terms, there are those attracted to ministry roles which care for the hurting, which help give rest to the weary, or which train Christians for something grander. There are others, limited only by God’s imagination. What type of ministry sparks your interest? If you had to donate personal time and effort to helping others in some capacity, what would you choose to allocate it toward?
For me, my particular ministry area of interest is seeing the sparks fly when people step out of their status quo lives and into the unknown, knowing only that they’ve been called to move out in faith in a particular direction. I love seeing when people recognize and then step into the role they were made for, when they start down the road of becoming who they were meant to be. It’s that moment when faith overflows into action, like Noah gathering his family around and saying “we’re building a boat.” It’s a shepherd boy saying “I’ll fight him.” It’s those “goosebump” moments in the Christian walk.
Sadly, many readers of the Bible seem to think the God of the Old Testament no longer empowers His followers today. This world is full of Christians living lives far below their potential, and I want to be a part of a ministry that encourages them to step into the role God has waiting for them. That’s why I write. If they just took that next step into whatever it is they know they’re called toward, they just might have a sit-flying experience, where their goggles start shimmying, their eyes go wide, and it takes their breath away to get a taste of the world that awaits them.
At some time or another, at least one person from all but a handful of the world’s nations has stopped in to visit this blog. Some had to circumvent firewalls to do it, others stumbled across it despite it being one blog among thousands. Of the believers among all those visitors, imagine all the backgrounds, cultures, and scenarios that exist. All of them are called to live lives honoring the Lord, and the way they do that is different for each person. What would the world look like if they all pursued God’s calling for their lives, even if they didn’t fully understand what it looked like?
Is there something tugging at your mind or heart, something God’s burdened you with, that you can’t shake? It might just be Him saying “come on, I’ve got a job for you.” Take a deep breath, pray for clarity, strength, courage, and commitment, and move out on what you know to be God’s will for your life.