In the Crushing... In the Pressing...

Driving to work this morning and my mind kept racing. I couldn't stop thinking about it... This past week, I had the opportunity to go explore some of Chattanooga with our students. One of the adventures we went on took us way down inside of what is known as Ruby Falls. It is beautiful, intriguing, and quite breathtaking to tourists much like ourselves, yet the beauty wasn't what kept bouncing around in my head this morning. No, rather, it was the small, tight crawl space that the founder crawled through for hours in order to make way to the beauty that we now get to see down there.

Prior to this excursion, we had ventured to a place called, "Rock City." At Rock City, there were two large rocks that you had to squeeze through. We joked about it, but the reality is, I panicked between those rocks.. My bag got caught and I for sure felt stuck. It was quite an uneasy feeling of believing you are stuck between something like that and not able to move in one way or the other.

Knowing that fear, I found myself intrigued by the courage this man had to willingly crawl between the stone to make way to what would be so beautiful... And not just the courage, but the endurance to keep moving forward despite the fear that had to of come.

In that dark cave, I remember stating, "You know... God could just touch this cave and it would all fall in on us." Of course, this gave light to a new fear while down below... but it is true.

As I sat here tonight thinking of all my fears and the anxiousness inside my chest, it hit me. Life is a lot like all of those rocks we squeezed through, whether it was the two rocks I got stuck between at Rock City or the tunnel that man crawled through to make way to Ruby Falls... on the other side of all dark and tight places that place fear inside of us is the beauty of pushing through.

At some point, we have to understand that while we have free choice and we can decide whether to keep going or to stay playing it safe - God is in control. There are no safety nets apart from His will.

Just like in that cave, knowing that He could make it collapse at any moment, our lives are merely fragile tokens in His hands. Our safest decision is to trust in Him and in His plan.

I recently read if it is God's will, it'll give you peace. However, I don't necessarily think that is biblically accurate. Sure, peace may come in time - especially if we turn towards Jesus in such a time, but it was God's will for Jesus to take on the cross and Jesus begged God to take that cup if there was another way.

Sometimes, we have to go through hard places to get to the beauty.

I'm not sure who other than myself needed to know this tonight, but may it remind us to keep going, to keep pushing forward, and don't hesitate to trust Him in all things.

Peace will come. Maybe not in this moment, but take heart dear friend.