Day in my Life: Part 10 – Trust Fall Exercise

“I trust God… but not enough for a trust fall.”

This is the phrase that I wrote in my journal this morning. I was praying and wrestling with the idea of trust, specifically trust in God, because the past few weeks have been really challenging for me. I know that I hear the voice of God, I’m confident in that, but some of the things He’s been telling me and directing me to do (or NOT to do) have seemed literally insane to me. I want to trust Him and just sit still with Him or trust Him and be held. I want to feel secure at all times. Trusting and falling is a whole other animal. I’ve been tempted (and have fallen for the temptation) to be extremely stressed, overwhelmed, and angry, haha. But as I was praying God gave me this visual, and I really felt like I needed to share it with you all. <3

I’ve never taken a hit while doing a trust fall with someone, but I have WATCHED other people fall. I’ve noticed that siblings in particular (especially boys) think letting their brother or sister fall is hilarilus. For me, watching from afar caused me to develop a lack of trust in all people, haha. So much so, that I have refused to do a trust fall with anyone for probably about 15 years. But you know what’s funny? The people who took a risk with a trust fall and fell didn’t swear off of trust falls, they just chose a different partner. Meanwhile little me, watching from a distance, wouldn’t even try because she was scared that she would pick the wrong partner.

Trust.

I’ve never liked trust… Or at least for as long as I can remember anyway. Why bother digging deep to trust if you’ve been able to handle yourself just fine on your own? Why try and change when people seem to follow the same patterns of letting you fall? It all seems to be too exhausting to try and try and try again. But what do I do if God is calling me to do a trust fall exercise with Him even though I still struggle trusting people that I can physically see?

What does a trust fall in the spirit even look like?

A trust fall can look like idiocy to some (even to other believers), but look like pure, unadulterated faith to God. And God LOVES faith. In fact, it’s impossible to please Him without it (Hebrews 11).

I was reading in one of my journals the other day from about two years ago when God was calling me to be in a covenant relationship with my now best friend. If you haven’t researched biblical covenant, I HIGHLY suggest it. It’s so important, especially for the days we are living in now. I’m no expert, but what I DO know is that cutting covenant with someone is not a game. It’s not something that you can just change your mind about and escape unscathed. Covenant is a life-long and in some cases an eternal commitment. The pure terror I felt for at least a month after I had made that agreement with her was so real, haha. I was questioning God and His long-term plan, wondering if I had actually heard Him correctly or if I had made this whole thing up in my head and now, I was stuck in relationship with some random girl who I wasn’t even going to talk to after we graduated from college. It was a trust fall. But BOY am I glad I trusted God on that one and not myself. McKenna is one of the best gifts that God has given me and all He asked of me was to have a little faith. <3

The thing about trust is that it comes with practice. It’s something that you have to build, and no stable structure was ever built overnight. The buildings that have stood for thousands of years, sometimes took hundreds of years to finish. Just look at the pyramids in Egypt or the Great Wall in China. Those are no joke! So, it’s okay if you’re not an expert free-faller after one day – just keep falling. ; )

Lot’s wife DIDN’T trust fall. She looked back when she was supposed to keep her eyes forward (Genesis 19). She didn’t trust that God had everything handled so she looked back at her old life one last time. Unfortunately, not taking that trust fall ended up costing her life. This situation kind of reminds me of when you’re doing a trust fall and you bend your knees all weird so if you fall, you’re at least a little closer to the ground. Or not keeping your arms straight beside you and instead trying to get your hands as close to the floor as possible so you can catch yourself if things go south. This might make you FEEL safe, but in all actuality, it makes catching you a lot harder. Not to mention discouraging for the person you’re supposed to be trusting.

God told me once that His love language is trust.

I love God so much. Just like I want to know what my family and friend’s love languages are, I want to know His. I want to show God, in the best way possible, that I love Him and I value our relationship. If His love language is trust, then that’s the language I want to learn to speak. And if His love language is trust, then of COURSE one of His favorite things to do are trust falls. Luckily, when we take the risk and do a trust fall with God, He is ALWAYS the catcher.

God has a perfect track record when it comes to catching. He may wait ’til the absolute last second sometimes… You may not feel His hands after it’s been a second or two of falling (which adds a whole layer of fun and excitement for the catcher, haha), but He will ALWAYS catch you.

Sometimes people do fall though, and how are we supposed to explain that? Well… with trust falls, there is some part of you that is always connected to the ground. Your feet are actually never supposed to even leave the ground. When I was thinking about this I immediately thought of Holy Spirit. He is the ground that we stand on, and the ground that’s safe for us to fall on. I think some people claim they are doing a trust fall with God but really, they just decided to run off of a cliff and were hoping that God would run to catch them. They didn’t realize that before they ran off that cliff, God had been standing there with His arms wide open ready for the most epic trust fall. We gotta work on our trust falls with God before He takes us sky diving.

Sky diving takes certification – anyone can do a trust fall ; )

Now listen…. this is not to say that God won’t throw a curve ball at you and take you sky diving before you’ve gotten the swing of a trust fall. All I’m saying is that Kingdom Life and relationship with God still takes work. God is not a genie in a bottle or a fairy with pixie dust, He craves relationship and communion, and with relationship comes the work to build trust. God builds trust with us, and we build trust in God.

Wow! God is so cool. I love when He gives me visuals to help me. God will even help you build your faith for the trust fall! He’s so cool like that.

So, here’s to more trust falls – in the spirit, and maybe even with people too ; )

Much love,

Bells <3