What Does God mean to You?

Several years ago my wife and I took a white water rafting trip with members from our church.  The raft we were in consisted of 8 people and one guide, who’s job was to make sure we all stayed in the raft for our journey down the New river.

The guide and myself  started talking about some of the stupid things we have done in our lives.  Ok! To be honest  we were acting like a couple of macho men.  He asked me if I have ever jumped off the rock.  I told him it was not our first trip down the river and yes we both jumped off the rock. He kind of  raised his eyebrow and squinting his lip shook his head in agreement.  Now the rock was the guides way of saying you are scarf icing yourself for the day to the river.  He later told me if people are not willing to do that then he knows who will help and basically who will not help in case of an emergency.

After a brief moment he said, “hmmm have you ever jumped off the cliff“.  I told him I  have jumped off a gulf refinery tank in the Ohio river before.  (This will be another story for the future. “Sometimes we need a push “)  So, we just casually were floating down the river when we turned a bend he yelled at one of the other guides and said, “we are going to stop off at the cliff“.  We stationed our rafts about 15 feet from the waters edge and several people got excited and wanted to go up the cliff.  I watched this guy jump out of the raft into the water and swim to the edge and climb this rock cliff; he  then  jumped off the cliff before we got to the base of the cliff.

There were a few people in front of me when I reached the top.  I remember these two girls they would get to the edge and look over and then look back at each other and say, “no way“!  I stood there for what seemed a life time.  I asked them if they mind if I took a look over the edge, they moved to one side.  As I was looking down I could see why they were changing their minds.  I took about five steps back and then the girls walked up closer to the edge and starred over once again .  I asked them if they were going to jump their reply was they were not sure.  Well, low and behold our guide came back up and he said there is only two ways down one is the fastest and the other, believe it or not is the hardest and with those words he dove off the cliff.  Ok, I have to admit that was impressive considering he said make sure you jump out far enough to avoid the rocks at the bottom.  Oh sorry, I left out that part.

When they moved to the side I was trying to be the next Olympic hopeful in the broad jump.  Do you realize no matter how far you jump out there is this nasty thing called gravity sooner or later it will kick in and have your body hurling downward somewhat faster then your ears are ready for  (the whistling sound your ears hear as your body is falling, come on now.  Really? am I the only one ). I hit the water and swam over to the raft our guide said way to go and pulled me into it.  I was looking for my wife to see what she thought and she was not in the raft. I turned just in time to see my wife stepping off the cliff and watching her fall straight down and hit the water. (we have a picture of her but not able to find it right now).  I was so proud and scared all at the same time.

So, back to the question in hand , what does God mean to you ?  To me he means he has given me the strength to over come all obstacles that the world will throw in my path.  He has given me the strength to let go of my fears and trust in him completely (hint, jumping from a perfectly good cliff).  He has given me the opportunity to soar like and eagle (knowing from time to time gravity will kick in and try to ground me).  But most of all he has given me his unconditional love by allowing his only son Jesus to die for me and more importantly to rise and intercedes on my behalf.  So, to answer the question he means everything to me.

But the most important question I can ask is,  what does God mean to you?

Hang in there because… were gonna get there..

In Christian Love,
Kevin Mundstock