A Four-Lettered "H" Word

So, what word came to mind with the prompting of this post's title?

There are actually quite a few that it could be...Help, Hurt, Harm, Heal, Hair, Hunt, Hold, Hate, He**, Have, Held, Hand, Head...and so on.

Well, HERE is a HINT for the word I am looking for:

"Now, Faith is being sure of what we HOPE for..."

Hope...

I first came across this verse during a Lenten goal of memorizing a verse a week, and of course, I sought all of the meaningful, short verses that I could find. Hebrews 11:1 came up. It definitely didn't take long for me to realize that this verse may be a short one, but the message it carries is a deep and challenging one.

Starting with faith, there are only two things that we have been called to do by Jesus, and that is to have faith and love. If you love God, yourself, and others and have faith in God, yourself, and others, I truly believe that all other aspects of following Christ will fall in place. It is like Faith and Love are the Black and White of a shade spectrum, and everything else is just the gray in between, a combination of the two.

Faith is Black

Blind

Not Definite

Black=all color

Faith=all of you

Love is White

Pure

Bright

White=no color

Love=no ifs, ands, or buts

Faith is a very important discipline. So, let's explore it.

According to Heb 11:1, the first part of Faith is knowing what you hope for. I highly suggest that you take some time right now to just jot down any and everything that you hope for. In fact, it might be insightful and simply fun to make a list of what we hope for periodically and compare it to the ones in the past. Where did it stay the same? Where did it change? So, seriously, pull up a word document or grab a spare piece of paper right now and write what you hope for before you continue...

As you can see from the pictures, I got to enjoy the thrill of paragliding in New Zealand. What. An. Experience! We had a free day in Queenstown, the hometown of thrill. This is actually the town where bungee jumping was invented. Can you imagine what that guy was thinking?! Anyways, I desperately wanted to go skydiving, as it has been my lifetime dream to fly; however, skydiving was a little over my price range. I also thought that my parents would appreciate my staying away from free falls while I was on the other side of the world. So, I chose the next best, cheaper thing: paragliding.

The trip to the paragliding launch site required just a short walk through town (pretty much the entire town is pictured under me) and a beautiful ride up the nearest mountain in a gondola. We weren't on the tallest mountain nor on the peak of the mountain, but the view was more than magnificent, and we were still above the clouds. We could see the clouds being funneled into the town through a gap in the surrounding Southern Alps. We were a group of ten, five thrill seekers and their tandem pilots, sitting on a bald slant of the mountain waiting for the breeze to come our way for lift off.

Well, the breeze never came, and the pilots started to converse as to what we should do. One was adamant that the breeze would come, but the rest were giving up. They put the question to us thrill seekers, "Should we wait for the breeze that might not come or take a short hike up to the peak of the mountain where the breeze could be found on the other side?" We said that we had no idea of what we should do and put the decision in the pilots' hands, saying we were willing to do anything. The pilots decided to go to the peak.

Let me translate something of Kiwi terminology: walk=hike...hike=death

For about 15-20 minutes, we were scrambling on all fours in a determined effort to climb the steep trail that was earlier deemed a "short hike". We did reach the top, and despite being just a few hundred miles from Antarctica, all of us huffing and puffing foreigners were shedding gloves, scarves, ski coats, and rolling our sleeves up in an effort to cool down.

The gracious pilots gave us time to recover by unfolding the parachutes and discussing the wind. The breeze was still not coming up the original side we were on, and some were making fun of the one pilot who said it would. Three of the pilots unfolded their chutes on the other side of the peak, but the faithful pilot started unfolding his on the original side. My pilot was a student and friend of the faithful pilot, so he also unfolded his chute on the windless side.

The other three were ready to take off. The thrill seekers were strapped to the pilots, and the pilots were strapped to the chutes. We all watched as the first group took off, and we heard the remaining pilots exclaim, "[Shoot]! That was a fast drop!" I felt like I had just heard "Oops" in a surgery room. The pilots rushed to that side of the peak and breathed a sigh of relief as that pilot was seen gliding softly away.

My and the faithful pilot returned, and suddenly, the breeze rushed up our side of the peak. My pilot exclaimed happily how the faithful pilot had been right. We prepared to take off. Now to let you know how to paraglide.

As I fastened to my pilot, he instructed me to run with all of my might toward the edge of the peak. I shouldn't fall or slow down as I get closer to the cliff but run like something is chasing me. He was going to run beside me and pull the chute up, and we would both hope that it would catch air. On the count of three, we would go.

One...

Two...

Three...

I take off as if a monster is right on my heels. The cliff gets closer and closer, and I start to worry because we are still on the ground! I am less than ten steps away from thin air and still a firm acquaintance of the ground. Five steps, three steps...We reached the cliff, still on the ground, and I let the world know of my calm nature through a textbook girl-pitched scream that I am sure the whole of Queenstown could hear. I pumped my legs in a last desperate effort to gain flight before the ground disappeared beneath me, and the next thing I knew, my legs were wildly kicking air. The chute had lifted at the very last minute.

Our lives are adventures like this one all of the time. There is doubt, fear, thrill, hope, faith, and fun. If we don't hope that our chutes will open, we will never fly. If we never hope for the wind, what will carry us? Without hope, we will never move forward.

Hope is so important, I want to continue talking about it in another post, as you are probably ready for me to stop today. So, here is what I HOPE:

I hope you can join me again next week.

I hope you can join the discussion with the questions in a comment below (anyone should be able to comment)

I hope God blesses you profusely.