Walking in Faith on a High-Wire

“God, give me guts.” – Eli MyGatt

Did you catch Nik Wallenda walk the high-wire by the Grand Canyon Live on Discovery Channel?  It was on Sunday evening and while Mr. Wonderful was out volunteering (yes, he helps hospice patients, he’s such a good guy) I was at home praying out loud nearly in tears as I witnessed this somewhat brave yet crazy dude walk a 1,500-foot high-wire.

The total time was about 22 minutes but 15 minutes in I could hardly watch comfortably, I had to turn it off.  My heart was anxious and as I heard him pray out loud and ask Jesus to calm the wind, I was like, dude, I’m going to pray along with you buddy!  Then I kept flipping back and forth to it to check on him.  I wanted to make sure he was OK, but not see him fall.

Hello Discovery Channel, that stuff was LIVE!  What would you do if he fell?  I can’t think about it.

As he witnessed along his walk across about his faith and Jesus to 13 million viewers (although recently I just saw something that said 21 million), I was proud but also worried.  I could just hear the cackling of what the world would say if he did fall, something along the lines of, “Where was God?” or “Why didn’t God save you or catch you?”  And I worried about that – because we know God still exists and loved Nik whether he made it across or not.  Just because something happens that seems a little devastating in our lives doesn’t mean that God isn’t still involved in our lives or using us for a greater purpose – it just might not be the way or the conditions we thought.

 I’m reminded that the world will think we’re crazy no matter what we do – the small or big things, the brave things, the mundane things, most of what we do or believe doesn’t make sense with the world.  Our views are so, unpopular.  But remembering that what’s popular doesn’t mean it’s always right helps me put a lot of what’s going on this world in perspective, Jesus can always be be glorified in ways we find out later.  And while we do live in a fallen world, that when things do go wrong, what is incredibly awesome is that our God is sovereign, and that should give us enough guts and peace to do whatever we feel compelled to do – even if we feel like we’re walking our own high-wire.

Diana Elizabeth says she would be in full on tears if Mr. Wonderful decided to do something like that.  Nik’s wife and three kids were watching, how scary was that?