Embracing Trust by Joanna WeaverSample

Free-Flying with Jesus

During the last year of his life, the Dutch priest and theologian Henri Nouwen became fascinated with a trapeze act called the Flying Rodleighs. Henri was invited to practice sessions and spent a lot of time talking to the troupe’s leader. Nouwen describes one encounter like this:

I was sitting with Rodleigh, the leader of the troupe, in his caravan, talking about flying. He said, “As a flyer, I must have complete trust in my catcher. The public might think that I am the great star of the trapeze, but the real star is Joe, my catcher. He has to be there for me with split-second precision and grab me out of the air as I come to him in the long jump.” “How does it work?” I asked. “The secret,” Rodleigh said, “is that the flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything. When I fly to Joe, I have simply to stretch out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me.” . . .

“You do nothing!” I said, surprised. “Nothing,” Rodleigh repeated. “The worst thing the flyer can do is to try to catch the catcher. . . . A flyer must fly, and a catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.”

You and I were made to go free-flying with Jesus! But we must surrender before He can take hold of us with His capable hands.

When a frightened young Joshua took Moses’s place as leader of the Israelites, God gave him a promise: “I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will not fail you or abandon you. Be strong and courageous” (Joshua 1:5–6). Interestingly, the Hebrew word for fail in this verse means “to become slack, to relax . . . to let drop,” while the word for strong can mean to “be firm, be caught fast, be secure.”

As we let go of self-reliance and choose God-reliance instead, Jesus will not only catch us and hold us, but He will never let us go.

What is one situation in your life in which you would like to go “free-flying” with Jesus? What would it look like today to trust that He will catch and hold you?