When God is the Rope, The rope has no end

​I was reminded this weekend that I can still be prone to feeling like I'm at the end of my rope. There are moments and memories and triggers that can take me from "I have a firm grip on this thing" to "I am hanging on by a thread" in just seconds.

I find myself wondering in those moments, how does this happen? How can a grip that feels so firmly ahold of life so quickly get to feeling like life is trying to shake loose of me and will soon joyfully watch me plunge into a dark pit?

I don't often recognize it in the moment, but more and more these days I DO come to recognize it, sometimes quickly, that it's not my grip I'm losing, it's my faith.

It's nice to feel like I have a strong grip. It's nice to feel like I can cling to this rope forever. It's nice to feel like I'm in control. It's so nice, in fact, that it feels uncomfortable and scary and sometimes downright depressing when I feel like the rope is no longer enough.

Here's what I forget in those depressing moments. God is not the beginning or middle or end of our rope. God is my rope. The whole thing.

God is not my good day or my so-so day or my bad day, God is my every day.

God is not my good thoughts or my blank thoughts or my dark thoughts, God is my every thought.

It is me who starts to categorize God. It is me who starts to decide on which end of the rope my God hangs out the most. It is me who decides this is no longer about the strength of the rope, but instead, this is now about the strength of me.

And here's what happens when I start believing this is now about the strength of me; I can pretty quickly forget that my truest strength comes from recognizing the rope is holding me and not from how tightly I take hold of the rope.

When I have faith that God is the rope, there is never a threat of losing hold of that rope. Plunging into a dark pit is not the rope turning on me, it's me losing sight of the rope.

I trust you all are like me. That you still have moments when you feel like this is the end of the rope. And maybe it is. There are days that feel much closer to the end than once upon a time.

But I want to remind you, with all the hope that I have been reminded with, God is not once upon a time or the middle of chapter 6 or the end.

God is the story. The whole story.

If it gets to feeling like God disappeared in that story, consider that maybe we simply gave up on the story God is writing because the story came to an end of the rope moment.

With God there is no end of the rope moments, only moments when we forget that God is the rope. Remembering God is the rope doesn't always work miracles, but it will keep you from plunging into that dark pit.

Because no matter how loose the grip gets to feeling, the rope never lets go.

It is indeed the sweet sweet story of my life.

The rope never let's go.