Him who is able

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, - Jude 1v24

In the last few months we have bought a Wii and a Wii Fit game for the family. It has been helpful because it spurred me on to lose some weight and I am feeling much better now. One of the games on Wii Fit is a tightrope walk. I hate heights, so could never do this in real life, but on the Wii balance board and TV screen it is not too bad. All you have to do is balance your weight on the balance board while your character walks between two buildings. As it gets harder you have to contend with virtual wind and virtual birds and all that. It’s a lot of fun, but I have a hard time ever getting past the first level.

That’s not too serious when I am standing in my sitting room. Even my fall is a virtual fall so it is nothing more that aggravating that I can’t get across very often. But can you imagine if this was a real tightrope? I think back to the guy who once walked between the buildings of the old World Trade Centre in New York. One slip, one stumble, one mess up and it was certainly all over.

Our Christian walk is a lot like that tightrope walk. Any attempt to do it on our own would result in a slip up, a stumble, a fall, and a disaster. I could now more home to get to the other side spiritually on my own than I could cross a line between those two magnificent building that stretched so high over the sky line of New York.

This reminds me of an old illustration. While I am not certain of the veracity of the story, it does drive home the point. Supposedly a few years ago there was a tightrope walker who was crossing Niagara Falls. He did all of the showy stuff, and then he pushed an empty wheel barrow across the falls. He then asked the crowd how many of them believed that he could push a person across the rope in the wheel barrow. The crowd screamed and applauded and cheered. So then he asked, ‘Who would like to volunteer?’ When he did that the crowd of course went silent. Everyone knew he could do it, but were not so sure that they wanted to be the one to try it out.

The amazing truth is that we have One who is able to get us across the line to the other side. He has able to keep us from slipping up and falling to disaster. He will get us to the other side and present us without fault in God’s presence. He can, in a sense, push us across in that wheel barrow. Even in that wheel barrow though, we need to do our part. We don’t rock back and forth, we don’t try to climb out, and we don’t carry with us loads of rubbish that has no part being in our lives.

‘He is able, He is able. I know He is able. I know my Lord is able to carry me though.’