More than just pull-ups

MY STUDENTS were posed a challenge by their coach the other day. They had been working on their pull-ups at a pair of pull up bars for some time already and had been pushing themselves a bit already. What the coach challenged them to do then was considered almost laughable; only one of thirteen people dared to try it at first. His challenge for them was to cross from one pull up bar to the other. The bars were about 50-80cm away from each other. He showed them it was possible: positioning your hands right, kicking of the wall, then transferring hands from one bar to the next.

One by one they tried, some more than once. They learnt from each other and some of them managed to do it. One guy in particular, had tried, but could not reach the other bar because he was afraid to let go of the bar he was holding onto and as a result of the reluctance and split second delay, he fell onto the mat. But he fell reluctantly letting go of the bar he was holding onto. He was afraid to let go and and trust himself to move. Yet at the same time, he did not want to give up, he did not want to fall. I related so much to that boy. So many times my heart is there wanting to do something, and I am not wanting to give that up, but at the same time, I do not give my all and have faith to move out. My coach used the word, comfortable. We get to comfortable with where we are; we know we must move, so we try, but our hearts are too used to the comfort and find the risk to big to overcome.

It was all in the mind, the coach said. How you tell your body to go on that is important - whatever skills needed, that will come later if your mind is set on it. The coach posed a final challenge to them: to move from one bar to the other by letting go of the bar completely; it meant that one literally had to jump from one bar to the other. He showed it could be done and after that told us he had never done it before.

The battle first starts with the heart of the mind - not the knowledge part, but the part of the mind that echoes what our hearts think.

Lord, help our unbelief. We want to see the victory; we want to see the multitudes.